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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...”