Once Strong had milked his entrance for everything it was worth, Al Sawyer quickly checked his boots and trunks for any foreign objects, then looked down at Frank and asked for the opening bell.
The first five minutes of the match were spectacular, but to the crowd's dismay, the Hangman had had the upper hand from the start. He scooped Strong up, slammed him to the canvas, and then joined him on the mat so he could apply a headlock and get a quick rest. Al got down next to them on one knee, asked Strong if he wanted to submit, then turned and looked at Frank. 'He says, no!' he shouted above the crowd. 'Don't ring that bell!'
Frank nodded, scratched his nose with the tip of his finger, and Al whirled back around to face the wrestlers. 'You sure you're okay, Strong?' he shouted, then quietly, 'Five minutes, boys.'
Strong suddenly reversed the move and threw the Hangman into the ropes, dropping him with a flying clothesline. His opponent crashed to the mat and Strong quickly covered him. Al slid over next to them and began the count, calling out the numbers and slamming his hand on the mat. 'One…! Two…!' and, realizing that the Hangman had no intention of kicking out of the pin, 'Three!'
The crowd, violently upset with the main event they had waited all night to see, began booing and throwing things at the ring.
Frank looked to Charlie. 'What's going on?'
'I don't know.' Charlie stood up, grabbed the microphone. 'Maybe one of them are really hurt. What's the time?'
Frank glared at him. 'Five minutes, twenty seconds.'
Before the announcement could be made, Benny and the other security people surrounded the ring and hurried the wrestlers and ringside personnel back down the aisle and into the golf carts.
Nick Strong was standing by his locker toweling off what little sweat he'd worked up when Charlie and Vincent finally made it back to the relative safety of the dressing room. The other wrestlers gave them a wide berth.
'Nick,' Charlie said, still out of breath. 'What happened, everything all right?'
Strong shrugged. 'What do you mean?'
'We were expecting a few more minutes out of you,' Vincent told him in a guarded tone.
The door burst open, and Frank charged into the room. 'You sonofabitch! What the fuck was that?'
'Frank,' Charlie said, giving him the eye, 'take it easy.'
Strong laughed lightly. 'Hey, the marks paid to see Nick Strong wrestle and that's exactly what they got.'
'You worked five fucking minutes,' Frank snapped. 'Do you hear that crowd out there? It'll be a miracle if we don't end up with a riot on our hands.'
'You're the boss,' Strong grinned. 'Sounds like your problem to me.'
'You motherfucker.' Frank rushed him but Vincent quickly stepped in and restrained him.
'Let him go. Come on, asshole, you want some of me? I'm standing right here, brother, bring it. I'll kick your ass six ways to fucking Sunday, moron. I'm right here.'
Frank struggled to break free but Vincent's grip was far too powerful. 'Get him out,' Charlie said. 'For Christ's sake, Vin, get him out!'
Vincent dragged Frank back out through the locker room door and pushed him into a small but deep alley between two of the buildings. 'Goddamn it, take it easy!' He brushed some sweat from his brow with the back of his sleeve and took a deep breath. 'Christ, what the hell's the matter with you?'
'That sonofabitch fucked us.'
'No shit.' Vincent sighed. 'But that's not the way you handle things. Jesus, have you lost your fucking mind?'
Despite the violence with which his hands were shaking, Frank managed to light a cigarette, then nearly gagged on the initial drag. 'He made us all look like assholes.'
Vincent unhooked the button holding his double-breasted suit jacket closed and put his hands on his hips. 'This was a one-time shot. We weren't planning on coming back anyway.'
'That's not the point.'
'We put some serious coin in our pocket tonight whether Nick Strong works five minutes or three hours,' Vincent said evenly. 'That's the fucking point.'
Frank glared at him. 'It's not always about the money.'
'Oh, yes it is.' Vincent spat on the pavement. 'Do you have any idea what you just did back there could cost us?'
'Fuck him.'
'You're acting like a mark, Frank. Do you realize how many people Nick Strong knows? Almost every major headliner in the business is a personal friend with the guy. If he puts the word out that we're a bunch of assholes to work for we'll be running shots with people nobody's ever heard of. You've seen how these pricks all stick together.' Vincent loosened his tie with an angry tug. 'As it is, Strong will never work for us again.'
Frank flicked his cigarette away and stepped closer. 'You're goddamn right he won't.'
'Did I miss something?' Vincent asked him. 'I mean, is it just me or did you go fucking psychotic all of a sudden?'
Frank stared at the ground. 'You don't understand.'
'Maybe you're just drunk.'
'Drunk? What the hell's that supposed to mean?'
'I wasn't gonna say nothing, but you've been drinking like a fish lately – and not just during off time like most of the guys. You showed up tonight smelling like a package store.'
'I had two drinks at the hotel.'
'That's two too many before a shot.'
'What are you now, my mother?'
'I'm trying to be your friend, Frank.'
A police siren wailed in the distance, and the angry crowd could still be heard from the field and surrounding parking lots. Frank leaned back against the wall and said nothing.
'Did something happen at the hotel between you two?'
'When I got there he had a girl in the room with him.'
'So?'
'A little girl.'
'And?'
'He was banging her, Vin.'
Vincent shrugged. 'How is that any of our business?'
'Did you hear what I said?' Frank pushed himself away from the wall. 'He was banging a twelve-year-old kid.'
'I don't give a shit if he was blowing a pony. Who cares?'
Their eyes locked. 'I care.'
'Look,' Vincent said through a heavy sigh, 'I know it's fucked up and I'm not saying it's right and that it don't gross me out, but so what? This is the business, man, and you've been around it long enough to know there's lots of crazy shit that goes on. It's the nature of the beast, Frank. Don't let yourself get caught up in some stupid ass moral dilemma. That's strictly for marks.'
'I can look the other way on a lot of things, Vin,' Frank told him, 'but there's a limit. There has to be a limit.'
'So you're willing to risk everything we've worked for because some kid you don't even know – that you'll probably never see again for the rest of your life – might have been smoking Strong's pole?' Vincent wandered closer to the mouth of the alley. 'For Christ's sake, use your fucking head.'
Frank lit another cigarette. It suddenly felt as if the walls had closed in tighter around him. 'Maybe I don't know what I'm doing anymore,' he said softly.
'We've worked so hard,' Vincent told him. 'We've pulled off something really special here. A year and a half
