by Jack Tunney
Wayne rolled his eyes and bobbed his head. “Remember a couple weeks ago when I docked you in that cowgirl match.” He waved it away. “I shouldn’t have done it. The botch wasn’t your fault.”
“Okay...” Vicky stuffed the money into her bag and stood up. “What’s the angle here, Wayne? I’m a pro? I’m smart? I’ve never seen a guy not have to chase you down for a payoff, let alone you give any of us extra for any reason. What’s going on?”
He was all whispers, patting the air between them. “Queenie, listen.”
“What’s the game?”
“No game, Queenie. Listen to me.”
“What’s the game, Wayne?”
He shrugged. “Okay, you got me, killer. I’ll tell you what’s what.” He indicted the chair behind her. “Just do me a favor and sit. And keep your voice down.”
Vicky eased back into the chair and crossed her leg, foot wagging as she stared at him.
Wayne came around the desk and leaned on its front edge just close enough to Vicky she had to uncross her leg and sit with her hands on her thighs, looking up at him.
He folded his arms above his damp gut. “What do you know about Mexico?”
***
“You can’t be serious,” Martin said.
“I am.”
“Mexico?” Martin shook his head.
“Why not?”
Martin patted his brow with a white hanky. “Think about what you’re saying. You’re going to go to Mexico, someplace you’ve never been, with a bunch of sweaty people you barely know, and you’re going to go wrestle?” He shook his head and rearranged himself on the couch with a huff. “What are you thinking, Vee, honestly?”
“First of all…” Vicky leaned forward in the white Queen Anne chair caddy-corner to Martin’s generous white couch. “You don’t know whether I’ve been to Mexico or not.”
He sat up. “Have you?”
“No.”
He harrumphed. “Do you speak Spanish?”
“A little.”
He waved that away with the hanky.
Vicky put her elbows on her knees, hands clasped. “I like wrestling. I don’t even know why, but I do. I makes me feel…” Her gaze searched the room. “More alive, I guess.”
In control actually, but he’d never grasp that concept.
“It’s a circus show, Vee.” Martin’s lower lip pursed. “Worse. It’s a side show.”
She sat back. “So what if it is?”
He sat up straight on the edge of the cushy couch. “You were in pictures, for Heaven’s sake.”
“Ten years ago. So long ago it may as well never have happened.” She gripped one of the chair’s arms. “And I never got anywhere.”
Except pregnant. And turned out.
Martin leaned forward, moved his cleaned breakfast plate from the corner of the coffee table between them and put it on top of Vicky’s plate, which still had a smudge of scrambled egg on it.
“I wasn’t going to bring this up,” He said. “But it hurt me you didn’t come to the opening last night.”
She rolled her eyes. “Martin…”
“It hurts even more that you skipped out on me to wrestle, after you told me for weeks you’d be there. And now I find out you’re leaving altogether.”
She shook her head. “It’s only a couple weeks. A month, tops.”
“A couple weeks, sure…” He flung himself back on the couch. “Unless you end up attacked, arrested, imprisoned, taken advantage of by who knows who, or otherwise…”
“Go ahead.” She beckoned the word from him with her fingers. “Say it.”
“No.” He showed her his palm. “I think I’ve said enough.”
“Fine.” She leaned back in the chair, hands folded over her stomach, gaze on the ceiling.
“I will say this...” He waggled a finger at her.
“Just say it.”
“Fine.” He flattened his hand to the arm of the couch. “The main reason I’ve let you live in the apartment above the gallery for so little rent is you always helped me with whatever I needed. Openings, receptions, hosting, a schmooze…anything I needed. I’ve always been grateful, Vee.”
“You’re welcome.”
“And even though you’ve never told me how you got it, I’ve always accepted your scar. It makes you unique and beautiful. You were just more art for the gallery.”
“Right.”
“And as long as you’ve been here and as little as I know, I never asked the questions we both knew I wanted to ask because now’s now and then is…” He waved an arm. “Whenever.”
“Yes.” She looked past his head.
But.” He held up a finger. “Ever since you started getting bounced around a wrestling ring, you haven’t been nearly as present, or as reliable…or as fun as you used to be.”
“Martin…”
“I was worried about you getting hurt around those people, but if you insist on going on this insane trip to Mexico…” He bit his lips. “You’ll have to find another place to live when you get back. Assuming you come back at all.”
She just stared at him. “Are you serious?”
“I’m sorry.” His chin puckered. “I have to be, yes.”
Vicky sat up in the Queen Anne, hands balled on her lap. Anger welled inside her but, “I see,” was all she said.
FIFTH FALL
Vicky dropped her name tag and store key on the counter in front of Gladys before the front door bell stopped jiggling.
“I quit.”
SIXTH FALL
Vicky peered through the rear windshield, trying to get a look through the last of the day’s sunlight. “Hey, was that just the sign for Oklahoma back there?”
“Huh?” Mammoth Malloy glanced at the rearview mirror. “I dunno. Think so.”
“Pretty sure it was.” Vicky smiled around at everyone in the car. “Happy Oklahoma, everyone.”
Mammoth rolled his eyes and mumbled something.
“What’s that, dear?” Vicky leaned forward and gripped the back of the front seat.
He shot her a look in the rearview. “I hated that the last time you said it, when it was Happy Missouri.”
“Why do you think I said it this time, my prince?” She kissed at him and sat back giggling.
Mammoth snarled into the back seat. “Be glad you’re not up here. That’s all I got to say. Be glad.”
“I am glad.” Vicky looked out the window. “This way I don’t have to smell your gas directly.”
“Screw off, Queenie.”
“Or as frequently.”
“Screw off, I says.”
In the front passenger seat, Mickey Mercury, a younger, slighter wrestler than Mammoth had ever been, looked out his window and tried not to laugh too loud.
Next to Vicky in the back seat, Dick Glass, an old referee Wayne used to use and the only one in the car who spoke enough Spanish to make any difference on the trip, cleared his throat. “Something’s been bugging me since we left,” he said.
Mammoth cocked an eyebrow in the rearview. “What?”
“I know what Wayne told me about this caper.” Dick put a hand to his chest, then spread it around the car. “But I have no idea what he told you all.” He glanced at Vicky. “That worries me some.”
Mickey sort of glanced at the back seat. “Why?”
Mammoth, Vicky and Dick all exchanged glances. Mammoth looked at Mickey as the car moved into the fast lane. “Because it’s Wayne, and Wayne’s the promoter.”
“Oh.” Mickey stared at the road.
Mammoth slapped his arm with the back of four fingers. “How long you been wrestling?”
“For Wayne or all in?”
“For Wayne?”
“Four months?”
“Hell you say. And all in?”
Mickey swallowed. “Five months.”
“Hell you say,” Vicky and Dick spoke in stereo.
Mammoth’s glare burned into the rearview again. “What’re you on about, Queenie? You
ain’t been wrestling long at all either.”
“I started a year ago last month, thanks.” She folded her arms. “You might remember it as the time you finally got over.”
Mickey and Dick whoa’d in stereo.
“Screw you!” Mammoth reached over the back of the front seat with a thick arm and swiped at Vicky. She yelped, but with a smile on her face.
The car shimmied on the highway. Mickey leaned closer to the wheel. “Watch the road, Mammoth. C’mon.”
Mammoth’s arm and hand found nothing but air, so they pointed at Vicky instead. “That will be the day I need a broad to get over, you hear me?”
“Alright, champ, we get it.” Dick guided Mammoth’s arm back to the front seat. “Eyes on the road, both hands on the wheel. We got a long way to go.”
“Yeah, we do.” Mammoth shifted his bulk in the driver’s seat. “And if you think I’m gonna let some cheap skirt ride me all the way down there, you’ve got another thing coming.”
“I love you too, baby.” Vicky giggled again and pushed her ballet flat into the back of the front seat.
“Dick!” Mammoth arced a thumb at her. “Say something to her, Dick.”
“C’mon, Tonda, don’t do that.” Dick tapped Vicky’s knee. “Mammoth’s got to concentrate on the road.”
She put her foot back on the floor and shared a grin with Dick.
Dick sat forward. “I think we all need to get on the same page with this thing long before we get down there.”
Mammoth nodded. “Yeah, alright. Probably a good idea.”
Mickey shrugged. “I’m just going down there to do some jobs, I think. Wayne said it’d be good for me to get experience down there ‘cause they sort of match my style — but Americans pretty much always lose down there, so I shouldn’t expect to shine.” He shrugged again. “That’s what Wayne told me.”
“Okay.” Dick tapped his shoulder. “That’s you out of the way.”
Mammoth glanced over at Mickey. “Did he say anything to you about what I’m gonna do down there?”
Another shrug. “Just that you were gonna build up a little and wrestle their champ.”
Mammoth grinned at him. “Then I guess not all Americans do jobs down there, huh?”
“I guess.”
Vicky shook her head. “Ask him if he’s gonna beat their champ, Mickey.”
Mammoth’s breaths were huffs and puffs. “I swear, I will pull this thing over.”
Dick gave Vicky a come on already look. She waved him off.
“Anyway.” Mammoth squeezed the steering wheel. “That ain’t all Dick and I are doing down there.” He looked in the rearview. “Is it, Dick?”
Dick pale gray eyes looked to rearview. “No. It ain’t.”
Vicky sat up straighter. “What else are you doing?”
“Don’t tell her nothing.” Mammoth shook his head. “She don’t need to know nothing we don’t need her to know.”
Vicky stared across the back seat. “Dick?”
Dick looked to the front seat. “There’s no harm in everyone knowing.”
Mammoth looked back at him “I feel like there is.”
“Why?” Dick held Mammoth’s gaze. “It’s no big deal that Wayne wants to recruit new talent.”
“No.” Mammoth returned his attention to the road. “I guess not.”
Vicky and Mickey turned to Dick. Vicky turned up a palm. “So?”
Dick sat back. “Wayne wants me and Mammoth to try to get their champ to come up and work for him.”
Mickey’s eyebrows leaped. ”Really?”
Dick folded his arms. “Makes sense. Guy over the next territory, what’s his name?”
“Munson,” Mammoth and Vicky said it together.
Dick nodded. “Munson is sort of making a push into Wayne’s territory. He’s bought a couple of the guys Wayne usually uses. He’s run a couple shows closer to Wayne’s turf. Stuff like that.” He extended a hand at Mickey. “I’m sure you’ve noticed.”
“Well…”
“I’ve noticed.” Vicky twisted her hips in her seat to face Dick. “So, what’s the angle with this Mexican champ? What is his name again?”
The answer came from the driver’s seat. “Aguila Gigante.”
Dick extended palms to the other two. “Which means?”
Vicky shrugged. “Giant something?”
“Giant Eagle.” Dick smiled. “Wayne figures if we can get this guy to come back with us, he’ll not only have a huge new star Munson ain’t even heard of, but he’ll have something to make Munson think twice about the stuff he’s pulling because this guy, like the name says, is supposed to be huge.”
“Wow.” Mickey nodded.
“Interesting.” Vicky’s brows knit, then a grin crept across her face. “You’re saying…he’s bigger than Mammoth?”
The car shimmied. “Dick! Shut her up!”
***
One day and several hundred miles later, Vicky pushed the whiskey shot, and the waiter’s hand that held it, away from her face. “I said no, thank you.”
“C’mon, darlin’.” The waiter glanced over his shoulder. “Bart’s insistin’.” He licked his lips. “You gotta do it when Bart insists.”
Vicky rolled her eyes up at the sweaty, greased maypole of a man. “Again, no, thank you.”
Stopping for the night in Cotulla, Texas, was Dick’s idea. He remembered doing something, or someone, fondly there at some point in his life, but couldn’t put his finger on it.
The bar, The Calico Cantina, was Mammoth’s idea. Vicky just wanted to stay in the motel TV room and watch Lucy, but Mammoth made noises about getting the other boys stinkin’ drunk, and Vicky didn’t want any delays to the start of the final leg to Mexico City.
So, there she sat as a chaperone to one grown man, one overgrown man and one boy in a Texas saloon, in which someone called Bart had taken shine enough to her to send the sweaty waiter over with a cheap whiskey shot three times.
The waiter swallowed when she refused this last time and turned to walk away, then turned and slipped the shot onto the table between Vicky and Mickey. “Case you change your mind.”
Vicky shook her head at the retreating waiter, then gestured at the shot he left behind. “Whoever wants it can have it.” She crossed her legs and threw an arm over the back of her wobbly wooden chair. “I wouldn’t give this Bart the satisfaction even if I wasn’t dry tonight.”
“Leave it there.” Mammoth waved a meaty paw at the little glass. “I’ll nail it later.”
Vicky leaned closer to him. “You are going to let me or Dick drive us back to the motel, yeah?”
He shook his big, shaggy head and looked through her. “Hell outta here. I’m fine.”
Mickey, his hands cupped around his second, half empty beer, looked from Vicky to Dick.
Dick, who was three Bombay and tonics in and steady as Karl Wallenda, gave the kid a wave and a nod.
“Hey. You don’t got manners enough to accept a man’s drink when he gives it to you?”
The voice came from behind Dick, who was the only one who didn’t turn toward it. Vicky looked up at the tall, lanky man with chiseled features and rolled her eyes. “Bart, I presume?”
“'At’s right.” He looked like a twist of cable, thin but strong. He pointed at the whiskey shot. “Now you gonna drink it or not?”
Vicky smiled up at him. “Not.”
Bart glanced around the table. “Where the hell you folks from? Nowhere near’n here, I know that.”
Vicky put her finger to the tip of her nose and waved the foot of her crossed leg at him. “Looks we found the one smart Cotullan.”
Dick glanced at her. “Tonda.”
“Tonda?” Bart’s thin face was all twisted up. “The hell kinda name’s that for a white girl?”
“Shove off, cowboy. The lady ain’t interested.”
Her face slack and her eyes wider than she’d like, Vicky looked across the table. “It’s all right, Mammoth. I’m handling it.” S
he risked a hand on his thick, hairy forearm.
“I’m handling it.” He jerked his arm away. “That’s my shot and I’m gonna drink it.”
“The hell you are.” Bart’s hips pushed up against the back of Dick’s shoulders. “I ain’t buying whiskey for you, hoss.”
“No?” Mammoth pushed up to his feet.
Mickey stood, palms extended to Mammoth and Bart. “Now, wait a minute, fellas.”
Dick, trapped between Red’s hips and the table reached for Mammoth. “Wait!”
“No!” Bart reached over Dick’s back to the table.
Vicky pushed away from the table just as Bart’s open hand slapped the whiskey shot from it. The alcohol spattered across the table and her legs, the bottom of the glass smacked her bare shoulder and clattered to the dusty floor.
“Ow!” Vicky’s hand went to her shoulder.
Mammoth’s eyes and nostrils flared.
Dick opened his mouth and put his hands up, but it was too late. Mammoth flung the table aside with one hand and powered himself over Dick and into Bart.
Dick rolled out of his chair toward the bar. Mickey knelt over him.
Mammoth and Bart rolled on the floor toward the door. The bar’s few other patrons either retreated to the corners and crevices or stepped in for a better look.
Bart pushed Mammoth away from him with two boots to the man’s chest. Mammoth staggered to his knees, but was far slower than Bart, who was on his feet with a chair from another table hoisted over his head.
Mickey flew in over Mammoth and connected with two sneakered feet to the wiry man’s chest. Bart kept his feet as Mickey fell to the floorboard next to Mammoth, but the dropkick did make Bart drop the chair behind him.
Vicky, one hand still on her bruised shoulder, pulled Dick to his feet with the other as the waiter said something like “police” into the phone behind the bar.
Bart regained his balance and stood over Mickey. “You don’t hit hard enough, little man.”
“No, he don’t.” Mammoth grabbed Bart by the collar. “But…” Mammoth drove his broad forehead into the side of Bart's jaw, crushing it and sending the man sprawling to the floorboards.
Mammoth steadied himself as Mickey climbed back to his feet. Two men attended to Bart on the floor as three more, much bigger, inched closer to the wrestlers from the edges of the bar.