Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 141, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 858 & 859, March/April 2013

Death Match by Chris Muessig and Steve Seder

Chris Muessig debuted with the story “Bias,” which appeared in EQMM’s Department of First Stories in 2009 and was chosen for that year’s Best American Mystery Stories. In 2010, be sold a story to AHMM that received a nomination for the Derringer Award. His return this month is a collaboration with his friend Steve Seder, a lifelong fan of pro wrestling who came up with the idea for the story. Mr. Seder, an automotive consultant who once flirted with becoming a pro wrestler, provided the authenticity of someone who knows “the manly art” first-hand.

Thursday — 10 A.M.

Al Brewer looked up from the burglary report clogging his typewriter. A man with the I brown, leathery skin of an outdoor laborer stood in the squad-room door. He looked familiar. He spotted Brewer and moved toward him, and the deliberate, sliding stride closed the connection.

“Holy crap!” Brewer said, standing up. Though they’d kept in sporadic touch by mail, he hadn’t seen Bud Mitchell in the flesh since they’d mustered out in ’46. Even after fifteen years, the guy still reminded him of the Duke in Back to Bataan.

Brewer grinned as he shook the vise grip of a hand, but Mitchell did not smile back.

“You got a minute, Al?” The deep baritone was burred from smoke and whiskey and a heft that told Brewer this was no social call.

“All the time you need. What’s up?” Brewer pointed to a chair. Bud sat, looking for an ashtray. An unfiltered cigarette burned between tobacco-stained fingers. Brewer fished a coffee container from the trash and handed it to him.

“How’s the family, Bud?”

Mitchell’s eyelids drooped like tired cloth. “Adele moved out on me since I last wrote you. Then she got the cancer. Least it was fast. And Chuck... well, that’s why I’m here.”

Another connection closed.

“That kid in the arena. That was your boy?”

“Yeah. I been to the morgue this morning. He was beat up pretty bad. What killed him was bleeding out from a cut artery in his head.”

“Bud, I’m sorry. I know Homicide checked into it. I heard it was a stunt gone wrong.”

Bud took a drag that left an ember pinched between thumb and forefinger. He dropped it into the coffee dregs and it hissed out. The bloodshot eyes locked with Brewer’s.

“Listen, the marks in the seats ain’t got a clue, and any so-called witnesses in the crew are ‘kayfabing’ your men.”

“Speak English.”

“Kayfabe is the way of life in the business. You do anything and everything at all times to promote the idea that wrestlin’ is a hundred-percent legit and on the up and up. You keep your mouth shut in front of ‘marks’ — the outsiders — and God help you if you don’t. But this was no accident.”

“Bud, you know something we don’t? I heard the kid cut his own self, which — let’s face it — you guys are crazy. I always thought you used those blood capsules, stage blood.”

Bud’s eyes wouldn’t let go. “Chuck was still a little green, but he wasn’t stupid. He knew how to get color. Marty Delaney beat hell out of him, and he was the one that cut Chuck.”

They used to say Bud’s face was like a cigar-store Indian’s, but Brewer saw the masked grief, same as when a buddy had bought it overseas and it was time for payback.

“I watched it on TV,” Bud said. “Delaney wasn’t working at the end.”

“What do you mean ‘working’?”

“He wasn’t pulling punches with his fists or the chair he clobbered Chuck with. I didn’t see the blade job, but I know he did that too.”

“Bud, like I said, the homicide detectives already looked at this. I know you’re upset—”

“They wasn’t there to see it, and even if they was, they might not have seen what I seen, crap TV or no. It ain’t like I don’t know the business.”

“I know,” Brewer said soothingly. He saw the other two plainclothesmen in the room looking their way with open curiosity. “Let’s take a walk, Bud.”

Brewer took him down the block to the Imperial Diner. Bud kept stirring his black coffee as he talked.

“I never wanted Chuck to go into the business. Whether he was trying to prove a point or what, I don’t know. This promoter, Smiley Rose, he’s a scumbag, Al. The last guy I’d want my kid working for. He stiffed me on a few payoffs, told me he’d push me up the card and never did. Once I got hurt, he dropped me like a bad habit. I mean, I’m not cryin’ about it or nothin’, but he does this crap, he uses people. For his own pleasure.”

The spoon scraped and scraped inside the cup.

“The kid and I weren’t close. His mother got custody in the divorce because I always had to move around to where the steel work was. I’m still pushin’ iron all over the place.” He looked up. “But he was my kid — and somebody’s gotta pay for this.”

Brewer felt the undertow beneath the words.

“What did you see this Delaney do that nobody else seems to have noticed?”

“Rule one in the business is you gotta protect your opponent. That wasn’t happening at the end of the match. He punched Chuck square in the face, over and over. He hit him across the face hard with that chair. Normally, you take a chair shot on your hands, like you’re trying to block it. Maybe it hits you on the front part of your skull. It wouldn’t be a hard shot anyway, but... the kid’s hands were at his sides. And then Delaney...”

Bud stared hard at the tiny whirlpool of blackness before him.

“And then he drove the kid’s head into the ringpost. That sound... like a pipe hittin’ a watermelon.”

The tired lids closed on the memory. After a moment, they opened partway, and he sounded more matter-of-fact.

“When you juice, you gotta cover it somehow so the marks can’t see you cut yourself. I showed Chuck years ago how it only takes a little nick or two. I don’t even think he was fully conscious when he got the cut what killed him.

“I know that boy could be a smartass, Al. And Rose always used what they call a ‘policeman,’ a guy who can legit straighten out an attitude problem in the ring — so I’m betting this is what happened to Chuck.”

“What sort of attitude problem brings down that kind of punishment?”

Bud’s face suffused with such a hot, coppery flush that Brewer thought he might have a stroke. The words squeezed past a collapse in his throat. “I dunno, but he... they... killed my son, Al. I need you to take care of these guys, or so help me God, I will.”

“It ain’t gonna come to that, Bud. It can’t. I’ll get to the bottom of this.”

Bud looked at him intently and then seemed to disappear within himself, stirring the last of his overt emotion into the coffee while Brewer wondered if his old friend could still deal like one of the four horsemen.

“Bud, let’s take it from the top.”

Thursday — 12:30 P.M.

“Why didn’t you bring him over to Homicide?” Brewer’s boss said.

“He knows me, not them. When he went by the morgue, the people there talked like the case was all wrapped up — accidental, self-inflicted, no evidence of foul play.”

“He knew better? From fifty miles away?”

“He has an educated eye. I got him to admit, though, that his TV was acting up. And he was doing boilermakers while he watched. But he’s a tough and stubborn man, and right now he’s just hanging back and depending on me to find out the truth.”

“Right, like there’s such a thing. This ain’t like you.”

“Lieutenant, I owe this guy.”

“I guess so. All right, but you gotta talk to the lead detective over there. Politics.”

Thursday — 1 P.M.

“This is Wendt.”

“Detective, Al Brewer at the Fourth. I have a favor to ask.”

“Sorry, Brew, the bowling league is all locked up.”

Wendt had a good memory for past conversations.

“It’s more important than that.”

Brewer chose his words carefully: An old army buddy and former pro wrestler, who also happened to be Chuck Mitchell’s father, thought the wrestling crew had been less than forthright during Wendt’s investigation; but Brewer immediately qualified Bud’s take on the action since it had been picked up from a crappy TV and seen from a parent’s standpoint.

Regardless, Mitchell was too good a friend to blow off. Would it be okay if Brewer revisited people Wendt had interviewed to ask a couple more questions from Bud’s inside view of things? He could tell them he was double-checking their memories in light of some new statements from the fans. It probably wouldn’t go anywhere, especially since Brewer’s boss had him on a clock.

“You’re right it won’t go anywhere,” Wendt said. “The whole thing was a comedy of errors in a freak show.” He seemed hesitant, of course, about opening up his flank to second-guessing. Then: “I got this dead housewife thing on my plate. Big uproar. So knock yourself out for auld lang syne. But if you do stumble across something relevant—”

“You’ll be the first to know.”

“I’d best be.”

“And you’ll let me know if anybody cancels out of the bowling league, right?”

“Funny.” Wendt did not hang up. “Listen, you wanna look at the videotape before we turn it back to Smelly Rose?”

“What tape?”

“The Wednesday night thing. They make a tape of the live action and run it around to area stations leading up to the big fight, like the one on the twenty-third. That’s how they promote it.”

“What did you think of it?”

“I haven’t seen it either, but you’re welcome to join me when I take a look at it over at the TV station. I’m going to do that tomorrow morning.”

They set a time and Wendt rang off.

Brewer thought he’d handled that as well as he could. Before doubt could creep in, he pulled out the police directory and found the number for the M.E.

An assistant answered. Brewer told him his precinct had received additional info about the Mitchell case and that Detective Wendt had asked him to check it out.

The chief examiner was still at lunch, but the subordinate gamely pulled the file.

“I hear he took an actual beating,” Brewer said.

“Yeah, but so do football players. It was the slash that killed him.”

“Were there any other razor cuts aside from the one that severed the artery?”

“Uh, yeah, the M.E. says there was another small slice near the hairline that he took to be a hesitation cut. If there were any more, they’ve been obscured by the breaks in the facial skin from the blows he forgot to duck.”

“What about the razor?”

“The evidence guy showed it to us to make sure it was consistent with the wounds. And it was not a razor blade per se, just a tiny sliver cut off the corner of a blade, a fraction of an inch in size, with a piece of adhesive tape exposing a small portion of the edge.”

“Enough of an edge to do him in?”

“Evidently. You know the head is pretty vascular. It doesn’t take much to get a flow.”

“Where’d they find it?”

“Tossed under the ring. His blood was on it.”

“His blood must have been on just about everything. Wasn’t there any attempt at the arena to stop the bleeding?”

“Well, the so-called doctor on hand was just a part-time trainer, really. He pressured the bleeding with a wad of gauze and got the kid responsive with smelling salts, but then he left him to hold the pressure by himself while he taped somebody else’s ankle. The deceased must have passed out as soon as the trainer walked away and let go of the compress. By the time the hack came back to stitch the kid up, Mitchell had bled out. They called an ambulance, but he was DOA.”

“And you guys definitely believe both these cuts were self-inflicted? And by that same blade?”

“That’s what it says here. Why? What’s this new info?”

Brewer did not want to be evasive with someone who’d helped him. He said, “We have at least one spectator with a different story from the wrestling groups. Just checking it out. Is the body ready to be released?”

“By the end of the day. The kid’s old man was in this morning for the ID. Funeral parlor’s already called.”

Brewer could see how Bud might believe the finding on Chuck’s demise had been prepackaged. Wendt obviously accepted the M.E.’s report as solid proof of an overzealous, self-inflicted blade job. So naturally, they had not thought to look for a second blade; and the assault... well, maybe that had not been as extreme as Bud had perceived it.

Thursday — 3 P.M.

Brewer took a chance and drove to Smiley Rose’s office without calling first. It was in the older commercial district, where mostly two- and three-story brick buildings harbored gilt-lettered storefronts with small professional offices above. The address he’d been given, however, was occupied by a single-story bike shop with an echelon of refurbished girls’ and boys’ bikes nosing forlornly against the inside glass. He thought he’d been misinformed until the owner responded with a morose nod toward the rear of the shop. Navigating a bicycle graveyard in the dark hallway, Brewer drew closer and closer to a male voice upraised behind a thin partition.

Opposite the lavatory was a door upon which someone had tacked a stenciled oak-tag sign: “International Wrestling League World Headquarters.” He knuckled the panel and went in without waiting for a response.

He entered a dingy, ten-foot-square space impregnated with the stink of flatulence and chewed stogies. A man was on the phone, sitting in the only chair in the room behind a battered desk piled up with crap. He was talking hard and fast at someone, perhaps a vendor. He made vigorous shooing gestures that made his chair squeak, no doubt taking Brewer for a solicitor or bill collector.

Brewer showed his badge. The unpleasant face scrunched up in a manner that reminded him in more ways than one of Benito Mussolini, except for the comb-over.

No windows in this crypt. The big ass of a droning, old air conditioner protruded from the rear wall, sounding asthmatic and impure. A single bare bulb hung down through a gap in the drop ceiling, from which several tiles were missing. Others had brown-bordered water stains and bulges that had dried just short of the bursting point. Dangling close by the dusty wire of that lone point of illumination was a fly strip stippled with desiccated black dots.

If ever a business survived on parsimony, this had to be it. Brewer looked around at walls with framed photos of men in trunks who seemed built more like blacksmiths or circus strongmen than modern-day wrestlers. Amongst the photos hung old poster boards advertising wrestling cards that were probably as ancient as the casts of silent films. On the floor at his feet was a heap of newer stuff touting the big night in Winsdale on the twenty-third. Bundles of single-fold programs wrapped in rubber bands weighted down the top poster. He stooped as if to tie his shoe, slipped one of the programs out, and stuck it in his inside pocket before rising.

The man slammed the phone down and looked at Brewer without getting up. “What?” he said, like the cop was a pesky kid tugging at his sleeve.

“Irwin Rosenfeld?”

“Don’t be a smartass. Wouldja ask for Bernard Schwartz if you were lookin’ for Tony Curtis? The hell do you want?”

Brewer saw the irony in the nickname “Smiley.”

“I’m here to ask a few follow-up questions about Chuck Mitchell’s death.”

“That wasn’t a Homicide badge you showed me.”

“Detective Wendt is tied up, and this is very routine.”

“Coulda called if it was routine.”

“Well, we have someone who alleges Delaney was dealing the kid real blows with his fists and a chair, and maybe made the cut that killed him.”

Rose gave him a cockeyed look. “Whattaya mean, ‘real blows’? This is professional wrestling, not the ladies’ sewing circle. You’re one of those ‘wrestling is fake’ types. I should have one of my boys show you how fake it is.”

“This is that kayfabe stuff, right?”

“Listen, Brower...”

“Brewer.”

“Whatever... Marty Delaney was doin’ his job, and the kid was too big-headed to admit he couldn’t work at the same level. He wasn’t too good with listenin’ to directions in general. Maybe if he kept his mouth shut, he coulda heard better.”

“Well, I’m told they worked just fine together in the first few minutes of the match, which calls for skill and cooperation on both parts, doesn’t it?”

“What’d Delaney say when you as’t him?”

“He’s being questioned by someone else. We’ll compare notes later. I thought you — having your finger on the pulse here at World Headquarters...”

“Ah, I get it now. Mitchell’s drunk old man came in with some fairy tale that goes against what everybody else in the world saw, so they send you along to do their scut work and cover their ass.”

People had spoken down to Brewer before. His reaction to it was always on a case-by-case basis. This time he decided he would ignore it versus Wendt getting some unproductive flak about an uppity messenger boy.

“You may have a point there, Mr. Rose. But Mitchell Senior was once a professional wrestler — one of yours for a while, right? — and seems to know what should have happened in that ring. He caught the whole thing on TV. We have to check out his contention.”

“Whattaya know from shinola? You taking the word of a drunken bum over a respectable businessman? Not to mention a thousand witnesses plus a million TV viewers.”

“I haven’t seen the Nielsen ratings. I suppose you had a good angle on the action, though.”

A shrug.

“When exactly did Mitchell cut himself and ditch the gig?”

“Gig... Buddy really smartened you up, huh?”

“I mean, if Mitchell was so inept, you probably saw when he cut himself. When did it happen exactly?”

“He was supposed to do it right before Delaney climbed down outta the ring to kick his ass. But I was on the other side of the ring, so I didn’t catch it. What else you need?”

“I guess that’s it. Maybe we’ll have some more questions after we look at the tape.”

“You guys are costin’ me money holdin’ on to that,” Rose said, seemingly unconcerned otherwise.

Brewer started to turn and then looked down at the posters on the floor. “Big night on the twenty-third, huh? How far in advance do you get all this stuff printed?”

Rose had already picked up his phone. “You still here?”

“How long?”

“Three weeks.” He started dialing.

Outside, the city air never smelled so sweet. Brewer took the program out and checked the match-ups. It proved nothing, but Chuck Mitchell’s name was not there.

He got in the car and thought about the man in the hellish back room. Rose was one of those pathological tyrants that cropped up now and then, sometimes as the head of a terrorized household, sometimes in the highest seat of government, like the ones he and Bud Mitchell had signed up to fight against. All of them, despots foreign and domestic, had the same appetite for power, the same hard-on for cruelty and violence, which they used to cow their followers and to subordinate men to do their worst bidding. On top of it all, Rose was sheltered by this kayfabe, the omerta of “the business.”

Too bad Wendt had talked to the creep at the arena and not in these squalid surroundings. He might have taken a harder look at him.

Brewer started the car, hoping Rose hadn’t been calling Martin Delaney.

Thursday — 4:45 P.M.

Delaney lived in a decent subsection of small prewar bungalows a few miles west of town. His was sided with pastel-green asbestos shingles. A big, well-trimmed lilac stood near the front walk like a polite greeter. The grass was neatly clipped and dandelion-free. Beds of yellow tulips cupped the late sunlight to either side of the porch steps.

No one answered the bell, so Brewer went down the driveway past a shiny black ’56 Chevy and saw more tulips, reds and pinks, alongside the house in orderly ranks between tubs of green mint. Every exterior wooden frame, soffit, and shutter had a recent coat of white paint. The place was so well kept that Brewer could not imagine its owner connected to the human spider he’d met in town.

Far down the long backyard, he saw a big blond man kneeling over another flower bed, both hands kneading the earth. A dark-haired woman sat in a wooden lawn chair behind him and pointed out something for his attention. They didn’t notice Brewer, even when he had drawn to within five paces and stopped to assess them; they were too intent on their project. A lively mockingbird and the shouts of children in a neighboring yard continued to mask both his presence and the couple’s companionable murmuring.

The man wore bib overalls and nothing else. Huge triceps moved rhythmically as he probed the earth with his pitchfork hands. The woman, wrapped in a pink housecoat, had a fine, delicate profile; but when she turned Brewer’s way, he saw signs of protracted strain slicing away from the wide mouth and gentle brown eyes. The hand she touched to Delaney’s shoulder was crippled, the fingers painfully gnarled.

Delaney looked Brewer’s way and sprang to his feet, the gentleness and cultivation gone from his posture. He stood a head taller than Brewer, and his yellow, Buster Crabbe hair avalanched toward the cop. He stood between his wife and the intruder, his face a caricature of ferocity, his bunched, earth-encrusted fists resting on his hips like Superman’s.

It was the woman who spoke. “Can we help you?” How even and placid her voice was, despite her obvious excruciations.

“Good evening, ma’am.” Brewer touched his hat brim and showed his badge.

“Oh,” she said. “It’s about that poor boy.” She looked up sadly at her husband.

Brewer looked at Delaney too, at the scarring from harelip surgery that ran down like petrified snot and made the man’s face doubly fierce. Delaney’s posture suggested that only his wife’s presence held him back from responding physically to the invasion.

“Martin,” she said gently. Reluctantly, the man stood down from whatever he had contemplated.

“I got nothin’ more to say.” The husky voice sounded like it had been injured by shouting.

“You know Bud Mitchell, don’t you?”

Delaney’s look got harder. The man turned to his wife and said, “I’m gonna walk down the lawn with this guy, Edna.”

“Help me up,” she said. “I’ll go inside; it’s getting buggy.”

They watched her step carefully toward a ramp built over the rear steps. It seemed an injustice had befallen this couple, but Brewer kept the thought to himself. Delaney appeared the type who might take any spoken sympathy as unwanted pity — or an interrogation ploy.

“I know you know Bud.”

Delaney held his tongue until his wife had made her laborious climb up the ramp and entered safely into the house.

“I know the bastard,” he said harshly. “Him and me mixed it up plenty.” He rounded on Brewer just as histrionically as Mitchell had said he would.

“Please. I know you were friends until he messed up his shoulder and left the game. You knew Chuck was his kid too — your friend’s kid.”

“He was nothin’ like his old man,” he said, folding his muscular arms across his chest. “Kid had a mouth on him.”

“So he deserved a beating?”

“Look, I don’t see the point of talkin’ about it no more. I don’t want my wife worryin’. Since you’re talkin’ to Bud, you can tell him I’m sorry about his boy.”

“Why don’t you tell him yourself? Eye to eye.”

There was finality in Delaney’s silence.

“Mr. Delaney, if I leave right now, you’re coming with me.”

Delaney sized him up. Brewer knew his only advantages were the police special clipped to his belt and Martin’s possible unwillingness to do anything that might upset Edna.

“So tell me exactly what happened from the time you tossed Chuck out of the ring.”

“I already told Wendt.”

“Tell me.”

Delaney measured his words. “Look, it’s a rough business. Guys get hurt. Bad. Ask Bud Mitchell. Him and me, we’re old school. We earned our push, and we got hurt sometimes in the process. Now they want pretty boys, and they bring ’em along before they’re ready. The arena rats, the broads, they go for these guys, so they get put on top of the card but they’re still green. Some of ’em think they know it all, and then they get hurt, like the Mitchell kid. Maybe he was a snot-nosed little piss-ant, but we still had a job to do. I done mine right. He didn’t. End of story.”

“What’s that mean, he didn’t do his job?”

“He screwed up. You think I wanted this to happen? I puked! I haven’t had a decent night’s sleep since. So screw you — and you need to get off my lawn.”

Thursday — 6 P.M.

Instead of going home, Brewer picked up some food and drove to the precinct, knowing a backlog of his normal backlog had accumulated by now. Lawns, shaded streets, and troops of kids on bikes gave way to brick and asphalt and herded traffic. He thought about his two interviews, searching for a salient into the guilt he detected in both. He needed to see more people to give it shape, and eventually he would get a handle on it and take it to Wendt. But would he be able to do that before Bud Mitchell’s timer ran out?

He set down his barbeque sandwich on the desk next to a message from Bud. They’d released Chuck’s body, and Bud was following the hearse up tonight. Plans were for a Friday viewing with burial on Saturday. He’d left a motel phone number where he expected to be by ten o’clock.

The day waned outside streaked windows. Brewer pecked away at the documentation of petty larcenies, mailbox vandalism, and obscene phone calls, much like hundreds of incidents come his way in the colorless years since the war. He had sympathy for some of the victims; others had brought their troubles on themselves. Maybe it was a good thing he had never felt enough ambition to seek a gold shield. Too many cases like Mitchell’s in the land of detectives.

Still at his desk at ten P.M., Brewer dialed the motel. When they put him through, Bud sounded a little looped. Brewer sketched the visits to Rose and Delaney and his plans for Friday. He said he intended to get up Saturday for the burial.

He listened for something ominous in the rumbling replies, but all he picked up was weariness lubricated by alcohol. As the call wound down, Bud said, “Go back and tell me exactly what Smiley and Delaney had to say.”

Brewer opened his notebook and fleshed out his earlier comments.

“You see anything there, Bud?”

“Can you sweat Delaney any more?”

“Not until I find something that would call for a fresh look at his story. I need more time, and a look at the tape. You concentrate on taking care of Chuck, and I’ll work on this. You hear me? I’ll see you Saturday.”

Friday — 9:15 A.M.

Doak Brookings didn’t work for Smiley Rose. He was an employee of the TV station that broadcasted Wednesday night wrestling. Brewer timed his arrival at WKRY-12 for the end of the morning news hour in which Brookings handled weather reports.

“Looking for Okie Doakie?” a stagehand said.

“Pardon?”

“Doak’s from Tulsa, so we call him Okie Doakie.”

Brookings was in a common dressing area, donning a turn-of-the-century fireman’s costume. He was a trim guy in his mid forties, and once he said hello, Brewer realized he had heard the pleasant baritone many times before.

“I thought you were the weatherman.”

“Yup, the weatherman, Firehouse Frank, Patrolman Pat, cartoons, puppets, comedy shorts, and Wednesday-night wrestling. Don’t forget the parades, Brick Bread commercials, and store openings.”

“Do you ever end up shaking hands with yourself?”

Brookings laughed, but the banter stopped when Brewer told him why he’d come by.

“Like I told Detective Wendt, my table was on the opposite side of the ring from where the kid got banged up. I had to call some of the action off the monitor I was watching because I didn’t have a direct view. How’s Bud doing? Haven’t seen him since he screwed up his shoulder. He must be busted up over this.”

“He’s not in the best shape. He saw it all on TV. He thought maybe you had seen something out of the ordinary during the match because he said you sounded a little funny at one point.”

“Well, when they went out of the ring, it seemed like they really notched it up. I got thrown off a little by the sound effects and the crowd reaction. But I wasn’t close enough to see if things weren’t right. Sorry.”

“Delaney reentered the ring on your side, though.”

“Yeah, he came around because he was getting hit with so much crap tossed by the fans on the other side.”

“And Smiley Rose, was he by you too?”

“Eventually.”

“Rose and Delaney made physical contact, didn’t they?”

“Well, Marty shoved him, but that was part of the angle. Where are you going with this? Marty’s a stand-up guy.”

“He was supposedly beaming like an idiot after leaving Mitchell facedown in his own blood.”

“I’ll be putting on a face myself when I come down the fire pole in thirty minutes.”

“Point taken. By the way, have you ever been to Rose’s office?”

“I haven’t had the time or the inclination.”

Brewer figured it would be the undoing of Fireman Frank and Patrolman Pat if they ever saw the underbelly of the IWF.

Friday — 10 A.M.

Wendt was waiting for him in WKRY’S control room.

A station technician had set up the big reel of black-and-white videotape to run on a 21-inch monitor and stood by should they want anything rewound.

Wendt, a tall, politico-faced guy with a nice set of clothes, seemed to be working on a personal-improvement plan. He shook hands and said, “When we’re done looking at this, it goes back to Rose, where it will be erased and reused until it falls apart.”

“Unless we see something evidential.”

“Yeah, right.”

The picture was sharp and stable. As Brewer watched, he took out the notes he had made while listening to Bud at the diner and consulted them alongside the action like marginalia, picturing Bud’s continuous struggle with the vertical roll on his little black-and-white.

The show opened with the familiar ringside voice of Doak Brookings touting the card of the extravaganza coming to the municipal auditorium in Winsdale Saturday night the twenty-third. Names: Iron Mike Something, the Masked Maulers, four mighty midgets tussling in tag-team action — including Big Tiny Blair and the Amazing Micronauts, and, in the main event, world heavyweight champion Paul “The Prince” Madison defending his title against the challenge of Mean Martin Delaney.

“Aaand, here’s our next bout. Let’s go to ring announcer Bill Fick for the introductions.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is a one-fall contest with a thirty-minute time limit. In the corner to my left — he weighs two hundred and twenty-six pounds, from Baltimore, Maryland — Chuck Mitchell!”

Chuck, as Bud had explained, was the “babyface,” representing Mom and apple pie against the evil “heel.” The kid — who had never been to Maryland — looked good, fit, and a lot more innocent than he really was. He bounced in place with the confidence of charmed youth while the fans cheered hopefully.

“His opponent from Fitchburg, Massachusetts, at two hundred ninety-two pounds, Mean Mar—”

Fick never got a chance to finish the introduction because he had to backpedal away from Delaney’s unexpected charge at Chuck Mitchell. The referee signaled for the belated opening bell as Delaney commenced to deliver “worked” blows to Chuck’s head and upper back, which the kid dutifully “sold” by sinking to his knees. Delaney put on what Brookings called a rear chinlock, using his body as a shield against the scrutiny of the ref so that he could slip into a blatant choke visible to everyone — everyone, that is, except the ref.

Brewer found the stylized violence energetic, but more amusing than convincing.

In his role of rabble-rouser, Brookings stated the obvious, “Listen to the reaction of this crowd! They don’t care even a little bit for Delaney and his tactics.”

Brewer imagined the pop of a beer cap, the slide of the bourbon bottle across Bud’s kitchen table.

Delaney draped the youngster’s neck across the top rope and snapped him backwards into the ring. He followed this with a series of boots to the chest and one to the head for good measure, although most of the sound and fury seemed directed at the canvas.

The ref warned Delaney, pushing him to a neutral corner. Mitchell struggled to his feet, shaking the cobwebs loose.

Delaney rushed Mitchell again, but the kid ducked under a vicious forearm and came back with a “flying dropkick.” He repeated the move each time Delaney regained his feet until the latter began to stagger around with a goofy, disoriented look. Mitchell took him to the mat with a series of moves that Brookings recited like a yoga instructor pressed for time: an arm drag, into an arm bar, into a short-arm scissors, the last actually a rest hold that allowed the two men a breather.

Both of them were fine athletes in Brewer’s estimation, but the brutality so far had been staged. The kid looked arrogant as he sat beside his opponent and locked up on the captured arm. Bud’s thinking, Don’t get cocky, Chuck.

Delaney attempted to regain his footing as Mitchell maintained his hold, at one point grabbing Mitchell’s trunks to hoist him into a pin until the howling protests of the fans alerted the ref to the infraction. Their delight was equally voluble as Delaney was taken back to the mat. Eventually, Delaney managed to get a hand on the bottom rope, and the ref called for the break.

Parental pride riding a bourbon and beer-back rush, but then the vertical roll returned, fast and perverse, as they locked up “collar and elbow.”

Delaney viciously raked Chuck’s eyes with that garden-tool hand. The ref stepped in dutifully with a warning but was pushed aside. (Here Brewer pointed out the gig being passed surreptitiously from the ref to Mitchell. The tech played it back for good measure.) Delaney began simulating the type of violence that had sent many a man up for aggravated assault, gouging the eye of the youngster, grabbing him by the hair and slamming his head into the corner pad once, twice, three times. He tossed Mitchell through the ropes to the arena floor “like a sack of potatoes” and followed him out of the ring.

Brewer sat forward. It was here that Bud sensed Delaney’s punches had turned real, as opposed to “realistic.” Indeed, the heel seemed suddenly possessed of a frantic vigor, like a barroom thug getting in his murderous licks, but the camera angle...

Delaney wielded the aluminum folding chair now, another authentic blow according to Bud, though the mike did not quite pick up the “sickening thud of the ‘steel’ chair” Brookings claimed could be heard all over the arena. Brewer listened for a change in the latter’s tone.

“Mitchell apparently isn’t capable of defending himself against this relentless onslaught. What a disgusting display! This isn’t wrestling! Again the steel chair comes crashing down on Mitchell... and again... and again... this kid’s going to be seriously hurt! Why doesn’t someone put a stop to this?”

Delaney pulled the younger man up to a kneeling position and smashed him headfirst into the ringpost.

“Oh!” Doak said. “Oh, man!” And indeed, it might have been real distress in his voice as the kid’s head apparently busted wide open and bled profusely. But Brewer also knew that Brookings had been relying on his ringside monitor at this point, cut off from the actual action.

“Referee Tom Scruggs calls for Delaney to return to the ring as the debris showers down!”

The gloating villain worked away from the rain of soda cups, hard candy, and small coins, smirking left and right and pounding his chest.

Smiley Rose made his ringside appearance, come “to check on Mitchell’s condition.” He intercepted Delaney, who had yet to climb back into the ring and stood amongst the fans inciting more anger. The two went nose to nose.

“Delaney’s title bout with Madison on the twenty-third could be in jeopardy — and the shove he just gave Rose won’t help matters any!”

They replayed the fragmentary glimpse of contact a couple times, but neither of them could see anything passed from Delaney to Rose.

Scruggs convinced Delaney to climb back into “the squared circle” and completed the ten count on Mitchell

Frick was back to make the official announcement. “Ladies and gentlemen, the time of the fall six minutes, sixteen seconds; your winner by a count out, Mean Martin Delaney!”

Bud’s big blunt fingers had coaxed the vertical to a slow hover at this point.

Brookings: “What a brutal beating sustained by young Chuck Mitchell at the hands of Mean Martin Delaney, who certainly seems ready for his Saturday night rendezvous with world champion Paul ‘The Prince’ Madison on the twenty-third at Winsdale.”

“All right already with the place and time!” Wendt said.

The camera peeked at Chuck from a steep and distant angle. He was prostrate on the concrete below the ring, facedown in what looked like a black puddle. A man in a cheap suit, “the attending physician,” knelt by his side, waved for a stretcher.

“Mitchell will no doubt be on his way to the hospital — so let’s go to commercial. We’ll be back with more All Star Wrestling right after this...”

Brewer knew that the infernal little set had allowed Bud this same steady, remote look as they turned up the kid’s bloodied face. Then he and Wendt were watching somebody lathering a five-o’clock shadow.

“Well?” Wendt said.

Brewer envisioned Bud up on his feet in the dark kitchen, a tiny reflection of the TV image flickering in his shot glass, the dark blood coming into his face. He shrugged, said nothing.

“Yeah, it’s like that Jap movie where everybody saw what they wanted to see.”

Friday — 2:55 P.M.

Tom Scruggs stood tall in the bleachers overlooking a cinder track where sets of harried-looking runners were practicing baton passes. The high-school coach was dressed in gray sweats, a whistle poised close to his lips. He seemed much more watchful than his referee persona, which made Brewer hopeful.

Scruggs glanced down at him as he ascended.

“You Brewer?”

Before Brewer could answer, the coach blew a piercing blast and bawled, “What kinda handoff was that, Wesley? Keep runnin’ till you’re rid of it!” Then quietly to the plainclothesman arriving alongside: “God he’p the nation if these boys live long enough to run it.”

Keeping an eye on the relay drills, Scruggs continued, “Still don’t know why you’re here. My recollection hasn’t changed.”

“Sometimes you surprise yourself when you have a different questioner. So. It was you who passed the blade to Chuck.”

Scruggs seemed to regret that admission. “That’s one of the ways it gets done. I’ve never seen it go so wrong, though. What? Are they trying to stick me with a charge on this?”

Now Brewer had his undivided attention. “Relax. How’d you get involved with the operation anyhow?”

“Doak comes around to the school doing public-service talks. They had an opening. He remembered that I coached wrestling here and asked me if I wanted to make a few bucks on the side — as a referee, not a hit man.”

“I’m not looking at you for this. But tell me, why do you think things got so rough?”

“I’m not close enough to those guys to guess. I don’t want to know. It’s my job to turn a blind eye and move the match along. Some of these guys can really wrestle, but in the end, it’s just an athletic soap opera put on in a nut house.”

“Did you see Chuck slice himself?”

“No. I know when the book called for the kid to juice, but from my position everything looked as it should. I can tell ya Marty was really upset afterwards, though.”

“How do you know that?”

“Well, I heard him reaming out the trainer for letting Mitchell bleed out like that. Then he threw up.”

“Did you pass Delaney a gig too?”

“What? What do you mean?”

“Or could he have been hiding one during the match?”

“Jesus! For twenty bucks a night, you think I’m gonna be an accessory to...”

“To what?”

“To whatever it is you’re getting at. Look, for a double sawbuck I’ll put up with a crowd of toothless rednecks yelling up at me for being blind and let a two-hundred-and-fifty-pounder pretend to push me around in the ring, but that’s it. I don’t buy into anything else.”

Some of the runners were slowing and looking their way. Scruggs waved them back into motion.

“Were you watching when Rose came down to check out the ruckus?”

“I was more concerned with this Hatpin Mary throwing a fit at ringside and giving me the evil eye. I don’t need to take a knife in the back for chicken feed. Don’t kid yourself it happens.”

“Why do you think Rose stuck his nose in and tussled with Delaney?”

Scruggs checked an automatic protest of ignorance, a peculiar inner questioning on his face. “You know that creep never shows his puss unless he’s hyping a big card.”

“So? If Delaney did use another gig on Mitchell, could Rose have come down so he could take it off him? Then Delaney could beat his chest while Rose made off with the evidence. Possible?”

Scruggs mulled it over and said, “It’s professional wrestling. What isn’t possible?”

Friday — 6 P.M.

Brookings and Scruggs had both expressed personalized doubts about the value of witnesses drawn from Wednesday’s live audience. Nevertheless, Brewer had taken the names of regulars they knew either worked or lived close to the arena.

Eyewitnesses in general are unreliable, but these were delusional: dishwasher, counter man, ward of the state, or person with no visible means of support, each was fixated on the personalities and predicaments unfolding weekly at what used to be the Majestic Theater. Their intense fascination left no room for doubt about the authenticity of the IWL saga. Brewer was surprised that Delaney and Scruggs hadn’t ended up in the morgue along with Chuck after experiencing the spittle-spraying diatribes he evoked from a couple observers. It reminded him of a story about frenzied soap-opera fans so deeply imbued with their suspension of disbelief that, happening upon an actress in public who portrayed a home-wrecking vixen on the tube, they had cursed and physically attacked her.

The worshipers of pseudo-mayhem presented him with a shared article of faith. Like Bud, all were convinced that Chuck Mitchell’s death was a result of Delaney’s brutal attack. They also believed that the reigning champ, “The Prince,” would exact a terrible vengeance against the killer on the twenty-third. Forever and ever, amen.

He found Kenny Stiglitz, the trainer, tucked into the corner of a dark booth in Webbie’s Tavern. He was a middle-aged guy with the build and demeanor of a discarded soldier. Brewer identified himself, and immediately tears began to run down the man’s stubbly face. His throat was so constricted he could barely speak. It was the first semblance of remorse Brewer had seen since first talking to Bud.

He told Stiglitz he was an old friend of Mitchell’s, hoping the connection would break down the kayfabe barrier, but it just made Stiglitz more gloomy.

“I wouldn’t blame Buddy if he came and broke my neck for this. I never shoulda walked away, even if the kid said he was all right.”

“The cut, Kenny. Can you tell me about that?”

“Whattaya mean? He went too deep on hisself.”

“Could you see there was more than one cut?”

“Was there? You think I could see that with all the blood? Christ!”

He put his face down on his clenched fists.

“Maybe if I’d been sober I woulda realized...”

That was about all Brewer could get out of him.

He grabbed some Chinese on his way back to the squad room. It was too late to make the Mitchell wake, but if he hacked away at his paperwork tonight, he could drive up for the burial tomorrow with a clear conscience.

He stopped the chopsticks halfway to his mouth, realizing loyalty and commitment to Bud were sinking now beneath the surface of forms, folders, and food containers littering his desk.

Mercifully, the phone rang. It was Wendt.

“What a good civil servant you are. What’s the wife got to say about all this?”

“No wife. No pets.”

“That ain’t the way I remember it.”

“That’s the way it is now.”

“You may be on to something. Anyway, you still churning the Mitchell thing?”

“Yeah, and you were right about it going nowhere.”

“What, you don’t like that Delaney guy no more?”

“I do, but nothing’s shaking loose. How’re you doing with that dead lady?”

“We’re sweating the husband, the smarmy bastard. Anyway, I’m not going to get blindsided on this Mitchell thing, am I?”

“I would’ve liked Bud with us while we watched that tape.”

“You can’t change reality, Brewer. Look, tell your guy he might be able to sue in civil court, but it falls short of criminal. So long.”

After some thought, Brewer picked up the phone again.

“Don’t hang up, Martin. Just listen. I’ve pretty much got it down, and I have you and a couple other sources tell me that you’re truly busted up about Mitchell once you find out how bad it is. I believe it. I think Rose asked you to put him down — just why, I don’t know — but I don’t believe you had your heart in it. Trouble is, no one tended to the cut the way they should have, and Chuck was too banged up to realize how bad off he was.

“When I look at you, I see a conscience at work. I think you need to say what really happened. Get out from under this weird storybook crap that Rose has you guys jammed up in.”

Silence...

“Look, Martin, I saw the tape of the match. So did Homicide. Wouldn’t it be better if you came forward before they decide to come after you? Wouldn’t that be better for the missus?”

A long pause, then a heavy-handed click.

Friday — 9:15 P.M.

Adele had grown up in this town. Some of her old acquaintances plus the wrestling coach and a few kids from Chuck’s high-school days had come by earlier in the evening. Bud thanked everyone quietly and listened keenly to stories about Chuck and Adele. He tried not to come off as the brooding presence that had broken up the household, but he was pretty sure he failed at that too.

The funeral parlor grew quiet and filled with empty shadows. He sat alone with fifteen minutes to go and stared at a restored profile that had nothing to do with the boy who had been alive.

He heard something and turned. For a moment, he thought someone’s kid had wandered away from another wake and was peeking in at him. But when the short figure rolled into motion, he recognized the stunted body and got up.

Burgess “Big Tiny” Blair possessed a rugged, elongated face on a normalsized head, but its disproportion to the rest of his body was striking. His dark suit was from the husky-boys department at J.C. Penney’s and hung kind of loose.

He came straight to Bud and held up his small but powerful hand. “Sorry ’bout the boy, Bud. Lemme take a look at him.” Big Tiny’s voice had grown raspy, and Bud didn’t like the chalky pallor of his skin.

They went to the coffin and Blair stood on tiptoe on the kneeler. On impulse, Bud lifted him from behind and held him up for a better look, realizing just how much bulk Tiny had lost.

“Okay, Bud, put me down. We gotta talk. I was on the card.”

“I know. I was watchin’. You done good — considerin’.”

“It’s what happened after we gotta talk about.”

There was a tavern directly across the street. A couple of regulars on barstools gave them long, impassive looks as they came in and then went back to their private reveries. Some Irish mourners were reminiscing loudly in the back, so the pair took a booth up front. Bud sent the waitress for boilermakers.

He offered Tiny a butt, but his old friend shook his head with a slightly nauseated look. Bud put the pack away “You look like hell, Tiny.”

“I feel worse, and it ain’t gettin’ better. It’s catchin’ up with me fast. I guess that’s another reason why I took the train up. I got nothin’ to lose by tellin’ ya what they done to Chuck.”

The drinks came, but Tiny merely stared at his beer and shot. He had always had a presence larger than his physique, but it seemed hidden now behind a twelve-ounce glass. He pushed aside his infirmity, however, and got right to it.

“They didn’t know anyone was left in the locker room that night. I was kinda wiped out, tryin’ to get up the energy to go home, when I heard Rose rip Marty a new one. He says, ‘I didn’t say to kill the punk, ya stupid bastard! I just told ya to send him on a nice vacation!’ He’s got Marty doin’ his policin’ now, see? And Marty can’t kick back because Rose has stuff on him. I’ve heard him threatenin’ to tell Marty’s wife about the arena rats Marty was bangin’. Rose yells, ‘And now look what you did! Screw the kid, I’m happy he’s outta the way, but if they lock you up for this, there goes my gate on the twenty-third.’ Marty, he blames it on the trainer, but it wasn’t Stiglitz cut your kid.”

Big Tiny downed the shot and chased it with a gulp of beer before it could come back up again. He seemed to be listening intently to his stomach.

“I shouldn’ta told you, but we go way back, pal. What’s right is right. Look, I gotta go. Sorry about your son. And if I don’t see ya again — I’ll see ya.”

Bud sat blinded and straitjacketed by fresh anger. When he finally shook himself out of it, Tiny had gone, disappearing into the recesses as he always seemed to do.

Saturday — 9 A.M.

Steady drizzle fell upon the tiny gathering of dark figures. Eventually, Bud and Brewer were alone at the graveside, hat brims dripping.

Bud meant to wait until the diggers came to lower Chuck into the ground. In the meantime, he related Tiny’s story in the way people ramble about a dream. Brewer said it was no help unless the witness went on record.

“You got the tape,” Bud said.

“The tape’s no good as evidence.”

“Whattaya mean no good?”

“It didn’t show what we needed. You say Tiny took the train up here? Considering the hour you saw him, he might have missed the last one going back.”

“He ain’t gonna tell you what he told me.”

“We’ll see.”

Within ten minutes, Brewer was at the train station. Big Tiny, asleep against the cinder-block wall, had the small waiting room to himself. Likely, he’d been on the bench all night and had scared off anyone else wanting to wait inside; he looked contagious.

Feeling like a bully, Brewer shook Tiny several times before the tired expression became a shut-eyed scowl. One more shake and the eyes opened on the badge held six inches away.

“I got a ticket,” Tiny said.

“Wake up, Tiny. I’m a friend of Bud’s. I know what you told him, and I need it on record to nail Delaney and Rose.”

Tiny pushed himself erect with obvious effort. His face was peevish and sickly.

“Screw you,” Tiny said, feet dangling above the concrete floor.

Brewer noticed his shadow had fallen across the dwarf, perhaps to bad effect. He sat down beside him. “Hey, I said I’m Bud’s friend — a war buddy. He told me you came here special to clear things up for him.”

Tiny leaned on his hands and hung his head like someone getting ready to puke.

“I came up to pay my respects, and then we had a drink. When I left him, he was just gettin’ started on a bender, so whatever he told you musta come outta the bottle.”

“Look, I can’t prove foul play in this thing if you don’t back me up.”

Tiny’s head turned slowly toward Brewer. The dark, bloodshot eyes looked malarial.

“I didn’t hear nothin’. I didn’t see nothin’. If Bud’s a frienda yours, you know he’s prob’ly half in the bag allatime. Nobody did nothin’ to nobody. I got nothin’ else to say, so piss off.”

Brewer mulled over all the “nothin’s.”

“Look, Tiny, this is a murder, or at least manslaughter. Don’t you want to see justice done for your friend?”

Tiny was hanging his head again.

“I ain’t got enough time left to see your kinda justice.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“It don’t mean nothin’ ’cause I don’t know nothin’” Brewer could feel the man clenching himself off in kayfabe, commitment as fanatical as a Japanese soldier’s.

“Bud wouldn’t have let me in on what you told him if he didn’t want this handled the right way.”

Outside, the clang and rumble of the arriving diesel charged into their hearing. Tiny hopped to the floor, heading for the door. He wobbled at first but got control of his stride by the time he reached up to the knob. His strange silhouette stood out against the braking cars for a moment; then he was gone into the rain.

What am I going to do, Brewer thought, tackle a sick midget?

Sunday — 6 P.M.

Bud answered his phone, his voice sounding smoky but sober enough. Brewer didn’t ask where he’d been all day.

“Tiny wouldn’t level with me, Bud. Why did he tell you one thing and me another?”

Silence on the other end.

“Even though the tape doesn’t help us, I hinted the opposite to Delaney to see what he does. It’s just a matter of staying patient.”

Bud said, “I got hired to push an open-deck job startin’ tomorrow. I’ll check with you later in the week.”

Was that an acceptance of Brewer’s advice, or lip service?

He had to figure a way of closing this thing.

Monday — 8 A.M.

The boss beckoned to Brewer as he entered the squad room. “Well?”

“The tape don’t help. Only two cameras and they weren’t placed right. If Bud hadn’t tipped me on what to look or listen for I wouldn’t suspect anything out of the ordinary. I think Wendt’s going to release it back. Meantime, I’ve been leaning on Delaney and Tiny Blair.”

“Who?”

Brewer explained.

“A giant and a leprechaun.”

“One or the other of those consciences has got to give.”

“When? Yeah, you’re done with this. You told Wendt what you think, right? Let him run with it if he wants. And your buddy, what’s he gonna do?”

“Don’t know. Lieutenant...”

“You’re done.”

Tuesday — 1 P.M.

Brewer’s phone rang.

Bud’s voice was more forceful than it had been on Sunday. Maybe that came from running a crew of ironworkers for two days. “Tell me what’s new, Al.”

“What’s new is I’m officially off the case.”

“But what about the tape?”

“It’s gone, Bud; we just couldn’t sort out what was staged and what wasn’t. Not conclusively. But I’m not quitting on this. I may be off the case as far as the brass is concerned, but that doesn’t mean I have to let it go.”

After a pause, Bud said, “It’s okay, Al, just drop it. I don’t want you hanging yourself out to dry.”

The dial tone was loud, like an air-raid warning.

Wednesday — 7:15 P.M.

Brewer ran aground with his paperwork, left the office, and walked toward the Imperial. It was jammed with exuberant kids so he kept walking. Up ahead he saw the vertical neon for Larkin’s, a bowling alley with good grinders at the snack bar.

He nursed a draft beer waiting for his sandwich and stared up at the TV. A coffee commercial finished up its jingle and then he was watching Wednesday-night wrestling.

He recognized Doak Brookings’ voice: “Welcome back, wrestling fans. Let’s head up to the ring and the very handsome Bill Fick.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is a one-fall contest with a thirty-minute time limit. In this corner, from Sarasota, Florida, at two hundred thirty-six pounds, Steve ‘Doc’ Russell.”

Russell drew a smattering of cheers that was drowned out by an avalanche of boos and catcalls accorded Delaney’s introduction. The bell rang, and Brookings began his call of the match. No mention of the fate of Delaney’s last adversary.

Russell and Delaney circled the ring and locked up. For Brewer it was more of the same, like an oft-repeated bedtime story, except he had lost the renewable surprise of childhood.

Delaney forced Russell into the ropes. Referee Tom Scruggs commanded the break, but even as Delaney complied, he provoked the ire of the ringside fans with a humiliating bitch slap across Russell’s face.

Russell stomped around like a kid having a tantrum.

“No doubt this is exactly the reaction Delaney wanted,” Brookings said, “trying to goad Russell into a mistake.”

Something was visibly diverting the arena crowd’s attention, turning heads. The high-angle camera pivoted awkwardly to capture a man rushing the ring, his identity concealed by a hood.

What a circus, Brewer thought. But his mild contempt for the latest masked marvel evaporated; something about the new arrival’s odd combination of headsman’s hood and civilian clothes, the way he moved, sent shallow fire along his skin. The last time he had flashed this much adrenaline had been overseas, that night when Bud had waded into an enemy emplacement armed with only an entrenching tool, ignoring the Germans’ screams and upraised hands. Then as now, Brewer had felt spellbound, ambivalent. And as there had been no stopping Bud then, there would be no stopping him now.

Brookings’ voice reflected excitement bordering on panic as he called the action, some of which eluded the camera.

“The intruder is entering the ring and charging Delaney. Oh, man! A kick to... uh, let’s say the lower abdomen!”

Delaney crumpled to the mat in obvious agony. From under his jacket, the interloper produced an iron pipe.

“Good Lord! He’s beating Delaney to a pulp!”

At this point, Doc Russell, moments ago Delaney’s bitter adversary, broke kayfabe and came to his aid. An almost casual elbow and swipe of the bloodied pipe sent him to the canvas too.

“Here comes IWL President Smiley Rose, and he’s frantically waving in the reinforcements! There’s Iron Mike Bailey! Fred McKenzie! Here come the Bavarian Storm Troopers! This is... what the hell is going on here? Excuse me for that, folks, but one by one, they have all fallen victim to this maniac and his weapon. The ring is littered with fallen gladiators. Now the assailant is turning his attention to Smiley Rose! Rose isn’t a wrestler, so why would... the masked man has dropped the pipe and grabbed a pleading Smiley Rose in a front facelock, delivering a devastating spinning neck-breaker to the IWL president! Oh, no! Rose is lying on the mat, his head turned at an impossible angle, motionless. The masked man sits down in mid ring amidst the carnage and — what? Is he crying?

“We’d better go to a commercial. We’ll be right back — I think.”