by Jack Tunney
Gonzalez turned to go.
“Senor.”
He actually had to take steps to turn around. “Si?”
“I just want to say…” Vicky picked at her nails. “It was a good idea you had…to have me use my scar.” She smiled, pointed somewhere near it. “It really worked.”
“Oh.” He gave her the same little bow Daniel had given him. “Gracias.” He was less free with his English without Daniel around as a safety net. “When your man tell me about it, I think, that scar.” He jabbed a thick finger at it. “Good gimmick.”
“Yeah.” She smiled as he rumbled away. “I guess it is.”
Hell, what if it actually is?
TENTH FALL
Daniel did win his match. He pinned a luchador in a black mask trimmed with silver webbing called El Arana Negro — The Black Spider. Ten minutes of back-and-forth action saw both wrestlers use the ropes and launch more attacks from the corner turnbuckles than Vicky had ever seen in Wayne’s ring, or even on television.
The match, Daniel said, was the latest in a series between the two in which they traded wins. When Daniel won, it was always a triumph of greater skill and ring generalship. When the Black Spider was victorious, Daniel was sure to say, it was always through trickery or deceit.
“Oh,” Vicky said, swinging her feet between her slingbacks as she sat on an equipment trunk. “Like Mammoth and I did to Incendio tonight?” She grinned up at him.
He nodded, arms folded, grinning back. “Just like that.”
He was still in his ring gear, still bare-chested, still tacky from sweating under the lights. She reached up and put a finger on his forearm. “Want to go shower and walk a ruda home?”
She let her finger slip from his arm and catch in the waistband of his tights, just inside the crest of his pelvic bone. She curled her knuckle into his smooth skin and looked up at him through her brow with one emerald eye. “I feel really good tonight.”
“Yeah?” He didn’t move or look where her finger was. He just stared at the eye he could see and the cascade of dark red hair that hid the other one.
“Yeah.” She smiled.
He took her hand away from his waistband and cradled it in both of his. “Give me a few minutes.” He kissed her hand and headed for the showers.
“Yessir.” She watched him go, feet swinging. “I feel good.”
***
Mammoth and Dick — who had done nothing more than mill about backstage all night — left after Mammoth showered. They headed for the bar Daniel showed them the first night in Mexico.
Mickey was…somewhere. He’d disappeared after Mammoth and Vicky’s match too, but no one had any idea where.
Only a few technicians and a luchador or two remained in the backstage area when Daniel emerged from the shower in a white shirt — unbuttoned to his sternum — black slacks and shiny black shoes. “Ready to go?”
Vicky looked him over. Two weeks and several hundred miles ago, she wouldn’t have given his off-duty waiter look a second glance. As she stood there, backstage at Arena Mexico, on one slingback, pulling the strap of the other one over her heel, the sight of Daniel Relampago made her warm in very specific places. “Ready.”
He offered her his arm, as he had the first night, and she took it, but this time she spread her hand wide over the inside of his bicep and squeezed it gently as they walked. She put her head on his shoulder. “How come your English is so good?”
“First, thank you for saying it’s good.” He patted her hand. “My parents are actually big fans of America.”
“Really?” Her head straightened.
They reached the door from the backstage area to the stairwell. He stepped ahead and held it open for her. “Let’s say, they were big fans of one of your cowboy stars. Do you know of Randolph Scott?”
“Of course.” She wheeled to face him in the stairwell. “I was in one of his first pictures.”
He stopped cold. “What?”
Whoops…
“Yeah.” She pressed a hand to her forehead. “Did I forget to mention it? I used to be in pictures.”
“You did forget to mention it, yes.” His eyes and stance were wide. “Were you a star?” He gestured up and down at her.
“Just an actress.” She mimicked the motion of his hand, giggling a bit. “Only for a little while though. It’s nothing to really talk about.”
“I think it is.” He leaned a shoulder into the smooth concrete wall, arms folded. “Especially if you acted with Randolph Scott.”
“I never said I acted with him.” She sidled up next to him, her rear end to the wall, hands between it and the small of her back. “I said I was in a picture he made.”
He stared at her breasts. “Which one?”
“Early in his career.” She stooped to catch his eye with hers, grinning. “And early in what passed for mine. He made a picture about a man using zoo animals to murder his enemies.” She made a face. “Pretty nasty little story actually.” She looked at him. “There was a big dinner party scene at the zoo in the picture and, if you look hard enough…” She struck a little pose. “There I am.”
“Amazing.” He tilted his head at her. “And you were in other pictures too?”
“A handful.” She shrugged. “But never to any great effect.”
His expression darkened. “Is this…” He reached for the hair in front of her scar. “Is this why you no longer do films?
“No.” She intercepted his hand with hers, held it for a second, and then guided it to the little rounded swell of her belly. “This is why I stopped.” She put her hand over his against her stomach and gave him a little lopsided grin. “Plus I wasn’t very good.”
His strong hand gave her middle the gentlest squeeze, his thumb stroked just above her navel. “The baby; did it die?”
“No.” She rubbed his hand with hers, eyes glassy. “But I can’t see him anymore.”
His kiss was full-blooded, full bodied and utterly respectful. She melted into Daniel and the concrete wall in equal measure. They kissed for a minute, or an hour, then parted just enough to stare at each other.
Vicky found her voice, reduced to a husky rasp. “Will you…?”
“Yes.” He smiled. “Yes, I will.”
***
A short while later, Daniel held the exit door from the back of the arena open. “My parents didn’t have much money, but they felt, if America had more men like Randolph Scott, I should learn English in the event I might want to be one of them one day.” He let the door go as Vicky slipped out into the crisp night air. “So they paid for me to learn.”
Vicky stopped short on the sidewalk between Daniel and the curb. “I see.”
Two broad men in black jackets, white t-shirts and, despite the time of night, sunglasses stood opposite Vicky on the side walk. One man was bald, the other had a shaggy mop of black hair.
Behind them stood Senor Gonzalez, looking much the same as when Vicky last saw him, staring past her at Daniel, deep creases between his brows.
Daniel stepped between Vicky and the men in front Gonzales.
Behind Gonzales stood another man, in a sleeveless black t-shirt, as big as any Vicky had ever seen. He looked lighter-skinned than the other three men, though he was standing directly in the beam of a streetlight and there was a long, boxy white sedan behind him. The big man had a nasty scar on the front of one shoulder and wore a bright red luchador mask with green wings across the face wrapping around the sides of the head with white stitching throughout. His shoulders rounded, the big man looked past Daniel at Arena Mexico, his body angled slightly away from everyone.
Gonzales barked something fast in Spanish at Daniel, who nodded and turned Vicky away from the other men by the shoulders. She tried to look back over her shoulder at the big man, but she caught only the quickest glimpse of him past Daniel’s arm as the group of men moved toward the arena’s back door. She glanced at Daniel’s jaw. “Was that?”
Daniel pointed his chin at the far str
eet corner. “Keep moving.”
They got to the corner and crossed the street. Vicky spun away from Daniel’s grasp. “Seriously, just tell me.”
He pointed at the sidewalk over her shoulder. “Keep going.”
“Was that…?”
“We’ve got to get you back to the hotel.”
“Daniel.” She stomped. “Just tell me first.”
“Yes.” His voice was a harsh whisper. He closed the distance between them and stood next to her, his hands on her shoulders. He brought his mouth close to her ear.
“Yes, that was Aguila Gigante. Now let’s go before you get me in more trouble.”
ELEVENTH FALL
Whether it was due to Vicky and Daniel’s unscheduled meeting with Aguila Gigante or just because he forgot, there was no further word from Senor Gonzales about the Americans wrestling on the Friday night card. Instead, Mammoth and Mickey, who’d resurfaced at the hotel the morning after his first-match trouncing, spent the night at the bar while Vicky and Dick went to Arena Mexico to watch the matches from backstage.
Except Dick didn’t really watch the matches. He spent most of the night going from one luchador, one technician, one security guard, one guy in a suit, to the next, using his Spanish to strike up conversations that didn’t look to Vicky like they could’ve gone very far or very deep.
But there was only so much she could glean about what Dick was doing or saying from her perch just inside the curtain through which the luchadors went to and came from the ring. The back of her neck tingled every time a masked man went through and she could feel the reaction he got — be it love or hate — right along with him.
The crowd couldn’t see her where she stood but, even if they could, it’s unlikely they would have recognized Tonda the Jungle Queen in Vicky’s wide-legged slacks, cropped sweater and platform wedges.
But she’s here. Vicky smiled through a part in the curtain. Tonda is definitely here.
Everything beyond those curtains was a wonder to behold. Everything she saw made Vicky laugh or smile.
Then something else happened.
Two matches before the main event — in which Daniel, Baca De Incendio and another, bigger luchador in an elaborate bull mask beat El Arana Negro and two similarly dressed rudos — two women, two luchadoras, went to the ring.
One, the technica, wore a black mask with white stars and a unitard and boots to match. She was announced as Mujer de la Estrella.
The Star Woman, Dick later translated.
Her opponent, the ruda, was wrapped entirely in dark red lamé with the exception of her hands and her head. She was rounded all over, about 25 pounds overweight, with striking features and a long mane of black hair. She strutted to the ring in a way that made Vicky feel small and weak.
She was La Reina de Sangre, The Blood Queen, and watching her wrestle Star Woman brought tears to Vicky’s eyes.
Their movements were fluid and in-sync. They traded offense and defense, attacks and counters in ways Vicky had never seen men do in Wayne’s ring.
And the crowd. The people in the crowd were with them every step of the way. No catcalls. No insults. They were just an audience watching a good story unfold.
In the end, Star Woman pinned The Blood Queen, or The Blood Queen pinned Star Woman — Vicky would never remember which — and they made their way back through the curtain. Neither of them looked at Vicky, and she couldn’t bring herself to look at them with her red, wet face.
She loved them and she hated them for what they’d done — for what they’d shown her was possible.
For a woman under the lights in front of the darkness.
TWELTH FALL
Vicky spent much of the next few days with Daniel. When they weren’t sampling the restaurants and cafes in the area around Arena Mexico, they were in the arena, where he showed her moves and holds, half of which no one in Decatur knew anything about.
“Why bother?” she asked at one point while she had his head scissored between her thighs on the mat.
“Because you never know,” was all he would say.
She asked him why he was showing her, a ruda valet and job girl, how to do this or reverse that a few more times over the next couple days. “Because you never know,” was all he ever said.
They kissed, of course, during the impromptu training. They touched each other places they otherwise wouldn’t. Most of those touches were fleeting and passed off by both parties as accidental, or incidental, contact, but there was no mistaking any of it for what it was.
On the Monday after she cried watching the luchadoras perform, Daniel showed Vicky how to reach around a man’s Adam’s apple with her thumb and four fingertips and crush his windpipe in her hand.
“That,” he said when she asked her usual question, “is for when I’m not near you anymore.”
***
The next night, Tuesday, Tonda the Jungle Queen clapped and screamed her glee as El Arana Negra skulked from under the ring and crawled up the ring post, giving a sweaty, winded Mammoth just enough of an opening to club an angry, distracted Daniel over the head with both meaty fists and pin him in the center of Arena Mexico’s ring.
“Get him up.” Tonda signaled to Mammoth as she slipped out of her slingbacks and slid under the bottom rope. “Get him up.”
The crowd booed El Arana Negra up the aisle as Mammoth, grinning nice and evil, pulled a dazed Daniel up to his feet, then herded the yelling referee into the corner as Tonda stepped in front of Daniel, who was still too dazed to do much of anything as she ran her hands up his chest.
The crowd’s boos tapered into held breath.
Tonda, winding the fingers of one hand as best she could into Daniel’s short hair, looked over her shoulder at the crowd. “You know what I think of him?”
Some people still booed. Most just waited.
Tonda yanked Daniel’s head back with one hand and slapped him hard across the face with the other. “There!” She turned her back and strutted two steps away from him, then pivoted her hips and thrust the side of her foot into his abdomen with a precise side kick. “That’s what I think of him.”
“Awwww…” Daniel jackknifed with the kick beautifully, almost cradling her foot in his hands and abs, and dropped to the mat in a heap.
Tonda stood center ring while Mammoth, the referee trapped between his rear and the turnbuckle, pointed and laughed at Daniel from the corner. “Ya está!” Tonda screamed at the crowd, arms up over her head, chin up. “Hay su perno del aligeramiento!”
There. There is your lightning bolt.
Thanks for the quick lesson, Dick.
As if the assault on Daniel wasn’t enough, the crowd’s rage grew indignant when Tonda taunted the people in their own language. Security guards had to form a human dome around Vicky and Mammoth as they hustled up the aisle. Food wrappers and paper cups pelting them all the way.
Vicky giggled and laughed for a full minute the instant they cleared the curtain. Then Daniel came through the curtain. “Perfect.” He shook his head, a grin plastered across his entire face. “That was perfect.” They either laughed or kissed for a minute more.
Mammoth rolled his eyes at the sight of them, but was smiling by the time he hit the shower.
He smiled again when Senor Gonzales had Daniel pull him and Vicky aside. The rotund promoter spoke his smooth silk to the luchador sotto voce as Vicky and Mammoth risked a glance at each other.
A ring attendant handed Vicky her slingbacks, but she just stood with them dangling from her hand.
“Well…” Daniel clasped his hands together, smiling wide. “How would you like to wrestle on Aguila Gigante’s card?”
***
As they’d barely slept Tuesday night, Vicky and Daniel spent most of Wednesday asleep on her hotel bed, clothes, sheets and blankets littering the room around them.
Her eyes popped open, some twisted dream image still behind them, with a slight cry and rolled from her side to her back. Her hand wandered over, hoping,
expecting, to feel the skin of the smooth, hard stomach she’d kicked the night before, but found only mashed folds of bed sheet. She rolled toward them and found a square of hotel stationery, torn ragged on one side, in the pillow divot where his head had been. The handwriting was terrible.
“Come to arena tomorrow night. Practice.”
The sun was beginning its decent over Mexico City. Vicky, the note in her fist, laid in bed and smiled until it dipped below the horizon, then she rolled out of bed and set about putting the room back together, grinning as she picked up each strewn item of her clothing or castoff bedding from the floor and furniture.
***
Vicky sauntered into the little hotel lobby in a sundress and sandals, no real aim or idea behind her steps, but a smile still etched on her face.
Mickey sat in the little parlor area, his body every bit as sunken as Vicky’s was perky. She strolled his way. “Hey there.”
Hands balled in his lap, he barely looked up from the floor tiles. “Hey.”
She plopped onto the couch next to him, head braced on her hand. “You look down.”
He shrugged. “I dunno.”
“C’mon.” She shoved his shoulder with her knuckles. “What’s the big idea?”
He looked at her for just a moment. “I dunno. Not sure you’d understand.”
“I see.” She sat back and pointed at his crotch. “Male problems?”
“What?” He looked where she pointed and twisted his hips away from her. “No. Jeez, Tonda…”
“What the hell then?” She shoved his shoulder harder this time. “I’m older than you and I’ve never caught a break for longer than a hot meal at a stretch. Don’t tell me I won’t understand. Let’s have it.”
Mickey’s hips turned back her way. “I feel like…” He looked over both of his shoulders and both of hers. “Like maybe I’m not cut out for this.”