by Jack Tunney
“For what?” Her brows knit. “Wrestling?”
“Yeah.” His gaze wandered the white, sunlit room. “I mean, I feel like I’m pretty good at it.”
“You are.”
“Thanks. And I feel like people like watching me do it, but…”
“But what?”
He licked his lips. “We’ve worked two cards down here so far, and I’ve gotten squashed out in both.”
“Whoa.” She showed him both palms. “I’m not sure I’m going to be able to sympathize with you there.” She shook her head, thumb poking her own chest. “I’ve spent the last year plus doing jobs.”
“I know.”
“I’ve never won.”
“I know.”
She shook her head. “I’ve jobbed to everybody. I actually lost to a midget in a monkey suit once because Wayne and Mammoth thought it would be funny.”
“I know.”
“They billed him as Little Cheeter. Get it?”
Mickey smiled. “Yes.”
“Not even Cheetah, who we could have said was the movie star.” She sat back. “Cheeter. And he pinned me clean.”
Mickey pressed a fist to his lips to muffle his laugh.
She smiled at him. “Don’t tell me about losing matches, bub.”
Mickey sat up. “The losing doesn’t bother me.” He shrugged. “Back home, I get to win my share, maybe more than my share.”
She folded her arms. “You do have a good look.”
He smiled and looked away for a moment. “But whether they’re cheering me home or booing me here and then cheering when I get beat, you know what the crowd sounds like to me?”
“What?” She smiled warm.
“Noise.” He slumped. “Loud noise.”
Every muscle in Vicky’s face went slack. “Oh.”
“Exactly.” Mickey sighed. “That’s the difference. Yeah, you always lose. But I can see you love the pop you get for doing it.”
She cocked her head and an eyebrow. “You can?”
“‘Course.” He gestured out the door somewhere. “Same as when you’re helping Mammoth out at ringside here. You eat it up. I can tell.”
She gestured in the roughly the same direction he did. “That’s here. I’m having a great time here. But back home it’s different.”
“Back home, you’re just as good.” Mickey sat forward, forearms on his knees. He tapped her knee. “I was around that night right before we left. You worked that big girl — what was her name?”
“Katie Barthedoor.”
He waved a disgusted hand. “She wasn’t no good. You got her that pop at the finish.”
“I don’t know.” Vicky’s gaze wandered the ceiling.
“She was too fat, too slow and too ugly to be a babyface without someone to sell her crap to the crowd.” He tapped her knee again. “You did that.”
She shrugged. “It’s what I’m supposed to do.”
He shook his head, poked his thumb over his shoulder at nothing. “That five-count stunt she pulled at the end? I asked around. You didn’t know she was going to do it.”
Vicky smiled just a little. “No.”
“Lotta boys I know,” he said, smiling at her. “They would have rolled a shoulder at four and ruined her in our house for pulling that.” He looked at her sidelong. “But not you.” He leaned closer to her. “You wanted to hear that big pop when the crowd saw Tonda the Jungle Queen, who they hate, get pinned for a count of eight.” He squinted at her. “That the truth?”
She rolled her eyes, looked away. “I feel like such a weirdo for saying it, but…”
“I knew it.” He sat back, arms folded, smiling, but then he shrugged and the smile slipped away. “I just wish I felt that way…could feel that way.”
She slid next to him and put a hand on his thigh. “You might just be homesick. You could be coming down with a cold. Anything. We’ve got two more cards to work here, by my count. Let’s just get through them and then you can reassess when we get home.”
He folded his hands behind his head. “I guess, maybe.”
“Good.” She popped up and flattened her dress. “I’m gonna go for a walk.”
“Alright.” Mickey close his eyes. “I’ll probably be here.”
“Okay.”
Vicky half walked, half skipped past the friendly front desk clerk, who gave her a wave, and pushed through the hotel’s front door — straight into Dick, who stumbled backward and dropped something to the pavement.
The satchel Mammoth left in the trunk of the car.
She reached out to steady Dick. “Sorry.”
“Nope. My fault.” He straightened. “Wasn’t looking where I was going.” He looked her up and down. “You’re looking beyooteeful this afternoon.”
“Thank you.” She gave him a little curtsey.
“Where you headed?”
“Nowhere.” She swayed a little. “Here and there.”
He grinned at her. “And what time did Mexican Lightening leave this morning?”
“I don’t know.” She smirked. “And shut up.”
“Yeah.” He bent over to grab the satchel. “That’s what I thought.”
The carpetbag had two wooden handles. Dick only grabbed one of them and the bag fell open when he picked it up.
It was full of money.
“Whoops.” Dick snatched at the other handle, closed the bag with both hands, and stabbed a glance at Vicky, who looked anywhere else as intently as possible.
Dick edged around her toward the door. “I guess I’ll see you later.”
“Yeah.” Her fingers fidgeted. “Oh. Mickey’s in there.”
Dick held the bag handles in one hand and the door in the other. “What’s he up to?”
She leaned in just a bit. “I feel like he’s not long for the business.”
“No kidding.” Dick shrugged. “Kid doesn’t feel it, you can tell.”
THIRTEENTH FALL
Arena Mexico was dark with only a few lights casting a hood of light over the ring. As such, it felt bigger, a lot more forbidding, than it had when Tonda helped Mammoth to two victories in front of a full house of angry, screaming Mexicans.
Vicky, with an overcoat on over Tonda’s ring gear and ballet flats on her feet, found Daniel, in sweats and sneakers, sitting in one corner of the ring with his back against the turnbuckle. She smiled at him as she headed down the aisle.
She was almost to the ring before she noticed they weren’t alone in the arena.
Senor Gonzales, gripping a cigar as dark and as wide as his fingers, and a young girl with the posture and look of a lost puppy stood outside the ring near the ring post adjacent to Daniel. Vicky slowed and looked from them to Daniel, her brows knit. He beckoned her into the ring and ushered her to the corner opposite Gonzales and the girl.
“I thought we were going to practice for fun again.” Vicky’s voice was a whisper as, her back to the turnbuckle, she glanced over Daniel’s shoulder to the pair outside the ring.
“I’ve got good news.” He held the top rope in both hands to either side of her shoulders. “You’re going to have a match on Friday.”
She blinked up at him. “I am?”
“Yes. And there is better news.” He smiled wide. “You’re going to win.”
Holy crap.
She swallowed hard. She wasn’t quite smiling, but she wasn’t not smiling either. “I…wait…” She tried to look around him at the young girl. “With her? Is that my opponent?”
He nodded. “And you’re going to win. Did you hear?”
“I heard, just…” She brought her focus back to him. “Who is she?”
“Her name is Rosita something.” Daniel shrugged. “I can’t remember. Doesn’t matter. On Friday she will be Pequeña Colibrí, and Tonda the Jungle Woman will defeat her in a match in Arena Mexico.” The width of his grin tightened his entire face.
Vicky relaxed against the turnbuckles, hands in her overcoat pockets. “Pequeña Colibrí. That’s little�
��what?”
“Little hummingbird.” Daniel giggled just a bit. “She will be Aquila Gigante’s niece.”
“Ah.” She nodded. “I get it. Cute.”
He glanced back over his shoulder. “You will defeat the champion’s niece. You will disgrace her.” He bounced on the balls of his feet a bit, eyes and smile bright. “The crowd will hate everything about it.”
She finally smiled, but couldn’t hold his gaze. “Which just adds fuel to the fire when Aguila and Mammoth finally face off.”
He nodded. “Exactly. Such a good mind for the business you have.” He reached out and squeezed her shoulder. “In fact, this Friday’s main event will be a six-man tag team match with those men leading the teams. Mammoth’s team will win, so everything will be set up perfectly for next week’s one-on-one championship match.”
“Yeah.”
“Of course, your Mammoth will lose that match.” Daniel shrugged. “But that was always going to be the way of things.”
“Of course.” She pointed through him to the girl outside the ring. “So, does Pequeña…Rosita get her win back from me next week?”
“What?” His brows knit. “No, no. She will only appear this one time. She’s not really a luchadora. Wanted to be.” He glanced back again. “Has trained enough to fall a bit, but there is no career for her here.”
“Does she know that?”
“Oh, yes.” He nodded. “Senor Gonzales said it is this match or no match for her.” His grin was back. “That’s why you can do whatever you want with her. Make her suffer, embarrass her. She knows the match is yours.” He rolled his eyes up at the lights, smiling. “God, the audience will be enraged.”
Vicky cocked her head at him. “And does she know that, after she gets disgraced by a gringa, she’s out of the business?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know.” He shook his head at her. “What does it matter? You’re going to win.” He gestured at the dark, empty arena around them. “On this stage.” His lower lip puckered a bit. “I thought you would be happy.”
“I am…” She stared at his chest, then found his eyes and smiled. “Really, I am.” She nodded. “I guess that’s what we’re here to practice?”
Daniel nodded. “Si, senorita.”
“Then let’s do it.”
“All right.” Daniel backed out of the corner and gave a high sign to Senor Gonzales, who sketched out a vague wave with his cigar and receded into the darkness.
Rosita Whatshername, the soon-to-be disgraced Pequeña Colibrí, pulled herself from the shadows up onto the apron.
“By the way.” Vicky nodded across the ring to Daniel.
“Yes?”
“You said woman before. It’s Tonda…” She dropped the overcoat to the mat and gave him a shoulder shimmy. “The Jungle Queen.”
He bowed, hands aligned for prayer, big smile at her. “My apologies.”
“Okay.” Vicky moved the overcoat to a corner and slipped out of her ballet flats. “Let’s see what we got.” She turned from the corner and bounded to center ring on the balls of her feet.
And then just stood there, flat-footed. Arms dangling at her sides.
Rosita was short, pudgy, covered in a thin layer of grime, and didn’t wear a thing that fit her properly. Her smudged white blouse didn’t quite meet her too-loose green skirt, leaving an inch-thick band of pot belly bare between them. Her hair hung straight down from her head as though someone had poured a bucket of water over it, and maybe they had as it looked about that wet. Simple sandals with a few broken straps were wrapped around her feet, the toenails of which were dirty and uneven.
Vicky, in her form-fitting Tonda attire with attached mini-skirt and professional pedicure, waved a hand at the girl. “Hi.”
“Hola.” Rosita waved back lamely and tried to tug her blouse down over her middle.
Vicky gave Rosita the internationally recognized wait-a-second finger, to which the girl nodded, and crossed the ring to Daniel. “Seriously, is she a vagabond or something?”
“No.” He turned his shoulders away from Rosita. “Not really.”
“Not really?” Vicky turned away from the girl as well. “What does that mean?”
Daniel licked his lips. “She’s been living in the office. Doing some work there while she sometimes trains.” He shrugged. “She isn’t very good. More an office girl than a luchadora now.”
Vicky stared at him. “And where was she before?”
He shrugged, then put up his right palm when she gave him a look. “On my father, I don’t know.” His features twisted. “They don’t tell me everything, you know?”
“Listen, I appreciate any strings you might have pulled,” Vicky pressed her fingers down in front of her as though there was a baby grand there. “But this doesn’t feel right.”
He shook his head. “I didn’t pull strings, or whatever you said. This is what Senor Gonzales wanted. You beat Aguila’s niece. To build heat.”
Vicky sighed, hands on her hips, and swept at nothing on the mat with her toes. She glanced across at Rosita, who stood in her corner, feet together, hands behind her back, looking up at the lights.
Vicky looked at Daniel and spoke just low enough to keep her voice between them. “She can sell?”
He nodded. “I’ve trained with her a bit.”
“So she’s not going to get me killed?”
“No.” He dismissed that with both hands. “I promise.”
Vicky gave the girl one more glance. “Does she know anything else? Any offense at all?”
He glanced at Rosita. “Probably a bit less than you.”
“Alright.” Vicky got back on the balls of her feet and waved the other girl forward. “This is what I want to do.”
FOURTEENTH FALL
“Aiiiyeee!”
The newly christened Pequeña Colibrí didn’t so much sell as scream. A lot.
But it worked.
For the four minutes since the bell, Tonda the Jungle Queen — using the punches and kicks she brought with her to Mexico, as well as some new, basic moves she picked up from Daniel — tossed, flipped and battered the little hummingbird around the ring.
And the packed crowd in Arena Mexico booed every second of it.
“Watch what I do to your girl now!”
Colibrí was clad in a simple green bathing suit, dirty white boots left behind in a locker by a mini luchador, and no mask. Tonda pulled her out of the corner by her hair, dropped to one knee and whipped the pudgy Mexican girl forward over her shoulder.
To her credit, Colibrí, landed perfectly on her arms and soles of her boots, but screamed in pain on impact.
The referee, a rather dashing, slick-haired gent, stepped between Tonda and her prey. “El cabello. Manténgase fuera de su pelo.”
“Stay out of her hair? That’s what you want?” Vicky nodded at the ref. “Okay.”
Vicky stepped toward the fallen Colibrí. The referee leaned in close to her ear for just a moment. “Thirty seconds.”
“Gotcha.”
Pequeña Colibrí was still whining and writhing on her back. Tonda stood astride the fallen girl’s head, then pinned Colibrí’s hair to the mat with a foot to either side of her head. When Pequeña Colibrí raised her hands to try to grab at Tonda’s feet, the jungle queen grabbed the little hummingbird’s wrists with both hands and yanked them up toward the ceiling.
Colibrí put her little boots flat on the mat and bridged up, arching her back. Her head stayed squarely on the mat, but she screamed “Mi pelo! Mi pelo!” nonetheless.
Tonda pulled Colibrí’s wrists harder and the crowd bellowed its hatred for the situation. The referee deflected a hurled paper cup before it hit Tonda in the back of the head, then got in the jungle queen’s face. “Su cabello!” He stepped back and raised his hand. “Uno. Dos. Tres…”
She’d be disqualified if he got to five, so after the referee counted to four Tonda released Colibrí’s wrists and showed him her palms. “I’m off. See? I’m off
her.”
The referee made a disgusted face and circled away.
The little hummingbird, still whimpering from the fake hair pulling, but legitimately winded from screaming and flipping around the ring for almost five minutes, struggled to get to her hands and knees.
“Let me help you up, darling.” Tonda wound her fingers into Colibrí’s hair and pulled her to her feet.
The little girl stood there swaying, defenseless, arms at her sides.
Tonda drove a short kick into the girl’s soft middle.
“Aiiiyeee!” Colibrí doubled over, holding her belly.
Tonda maneuvered the helpless little girl’s sweaty head between her thighs and waved her arms at the crowd. “Watch this!”
Amidst all the boos she got with her taunt, Tonda bent over and wrapped her arms around the little hummingbird’s middle, looking to set her up for the devastation of a pile driver.
The crowd gasped.
Tonda cocked her head slightly in the direction of her own thighs. “Now, baby.”
With a bellow that came from somewhere near her colon, Pequeña Colibrí put her hands on her knees and stood up straight, sending Tonda The Jungle Queen upside down over her back to the mat.
“Uhhff!” Tonda landed with a thud and flopped out like roadkill.
Now standing astride Tonda’s head, Colibrí staggered back a step and collapsed to her knees.
Pinning Tonda’s shoulders under her shins.
“No!” In a panic, Tonda’s legs spasmed up in unison to try to escape her predicament. She sent both of her feet at Colibrí’s back, but the little girl whipped her arms over her shoulders and hooked both the jungle queen’s legs just above the ankles.
Exhausted, Colibrí fell forward until her forehead hit the mat, pulling Tonda’s legs up and folding the jungle queen in half.
No one heard her over the cheers of the amazed crowd, but Tonda screamed her desperate protest for the entire three count.
Colibrí released Tonda’s legs at the bell, but could barely push herself up to her hands and knees. Tonda, enraged by the outcome of the match, scrambled to her feet and rained kicks, fists and claws down on the little girl’s back. “This was mine! It’s not fair! This was mine!”
