Champion of the World (38 page)

T
he grand ballroom on the ground floor of the Plaza Hotel filled up early for the press conference. Fritz and Stettler had gotten the story of Pepper stepping in for Taft out to their contacts in the press, and for two days the papers had been going crazy with it. This would be the first and only time reporters would get the opportunity to see Pepper and Lesko before Saturday's match, and no one wanted to miss the chance. At least, that's how it looked to Pepper as he stood on the side of the stage, eyeing the crowd through the curtain.

The wrestlers had come down from their rooms on different staircases and would enter the press conference from opposite sides of the stage. It was just Pepper and Moira standing there now, holding hands in the dark. Somewhere in the deep recesses across the way, he knew Fritz, Lesko and Stettler were watching him. It gave him a tickling feeling, but he made sure not to fidget. He was barely breathing. His mind was racing with other things, trying to plan his moves a step at a time, trying to make sure he had it all straight in his head. The longer they stood there, the thicker the silence felt, the more he could feel their eyes boring into him. It was like a weight on top of him, pushing him into the floor through the soles of his shoes.

Just to be saying something, he asked how Carol Jean was holding up. Moira said she hadn't seen her that morning. Carol Jean
hadn't answered the door when she'd gone down to check on her. Since Taft's death she'd barely left her hotel room, agreeing only to see Moira. Now Moira said she didn't know if she'd finally gone out to get some air of if she just wasn't coming to the door.

The two of them were murmuring to each other, barely moving their lips like a couple of ventriloquists practicing their act. It felt queer to him, the two of them standing there, trying to be quiet, waiting for him to go onstage. Like old times.

“She'll turn up,” he said. “Probably just went on a walk to clear her head.”

“I wish I was that confident,” Moira said. “She hasn't been well. Not that I blame her.”

At precisely four o'clock Stettler and Fritz walked onto the stage to address the crowd, ignoring questions shouted at them by the reporters long enough for each to make some brief introductory remarks. Both men agreed that Garfield Taft's death from a sudden illness was tragic but were pleased to be able to offer the sporting people of New York a spectacle just as, if not more, compelling. Stettler even made a point to say they were indebted to Mr. Van Dean for taking the bout on short notice and without proper time to prepare himself for Lesko and his scientific wrestling arsenal.

“A gargantuan task,” Stettler said, “for a lightweight competitor with an outsized heart.”

This drew some guffaws from the crowd, and those chuckles bubbled into a wave of laughter as the promoters introduced the wrestlers. As the challenger, Pepper came onstage first, smiling and waving, dressed in three thick winter overcoats and carrying a milk crate in one hand. Under his shirt he'd stuffed two pillows from the bed in his room, giving him the outlandish look of a lumpy heavyweight. Holding his arms away from his sides, he strutted to the center of the stage in an exaggerated cowboy walk. Some of the reporters applauded politely as Lesko entered from the other side,
looking staid by comparison in a brown suit, cream-colored shirt and gold tie. He came to center for the face-off, his mouth tight, his eyes betraying nothing as Pepper made a show of setting down his milk crate and climbing carefully on top of it.

Standing on top of the crate, Pepper was almost a full head taller than Lesko. From there, he squatted low into an embellished wrestling pose, facing the heavyweight champion eye to eye, giving him a grin. Lesko looked bored and simply held up one massive fist.

They had to hold the pose for an uncomfortably long time while the reporters got their cameras into the position and squeezed off a series of loud, popping photographs. Neither man looked away, and Pepper felt a single trickle of sweat roll down his ribs underneath his thick outfit. He searched Lesko's eyes for some reaction to their earlier conversation, but saw none.

Once the photographers had gotten what they wanted, the two men took their seats. The first question came from the back, a reporter asking Lesko what he thought of Pepper as a new opponent. The champion answered in a low monotone, his voice without emotion as he recited an obviously rehearsed response. “Van Dean was a great champion in his day,” Lesko said, “but he's never been in the ring with someone like me.”

The reporters began to scribble, but Pepper interrupted. “Not true,” he said, hearing his voice echo in the big room. “Mr. Lesko overlooks my carnival experience. I've wrestled plenty of bears.”

The reporters smiled into their notebooks and kept writing. One of them asked Stettler about Lesko's insistence that he would wrestle Taft only in a one-fall match and whether the same held true now with Van Dean in as a substitute. Stettler nodded, but Pepper held up a finger before the promoter could open his mouth.

“I'll take this one, Billy,” he said. “If the winner of this bout is to walk out of Madison Square Garden with the world's heavyweight title, it's only fair he should take two out of three falls.”

“Let's not be hasty,” Stettler said. “Strangler Lesko has trained for a one-fall match and we're dealing with a replacement opponent here. One fall makes the most sense.”

“Two out of three falls,” Pepper repeated. “The paying customer has already been dealt a blow with Mr. Taft's unfortunate passing. Let's give folks their money's worth. Plus, I don't want any of these vultures in the press saying my win was a fluke.”

“Wouldn't three falls favor the bigger man?” one of the reporters asked.

“Not at all,” Pepper said. “Lesko had vastly underestimated Mr. Taft from the start and now he's underestimating me. I believe his conditioning is suspect. I believe his wind is suspect. Over the course of three falls, he won't be able to contend with my pace.”

“I have no issue wrestling three falls,” Lesko said, a note of annoyance finally creeping into his voice. “I'm in the best shape of my life.”

“Indeed,” Pepper said, “and that shape is round.”

He could feel his momentum building, the old feeling of performing in front of a crowd. It'd been months since he'd felt it and just now realized how much he missed it.

“You think you'll fare better against Lesko than Taft might have?” a reporter asked.

“No,” Pepper said, “but I'm still pretty sure I'll win.”

Now they all looked at him like he'd lost his mind. It was exactly what he wanted. “So you think Taft would've bested Lesko?” another asked.

“I think Garfield Taft was the greatest natural wrestler I've ever had the pleasure to be around,” Pepper said. “Meanwhile, I think Lesko is the kind of man who pretends people won't notice how fat he's getting so long as he just keeps hiking up his trunks over his belly.”

The long table in front of Lesko screeched across the floor as he
tried to stand up. Stettler kept him in his chair, one hand resting lightly on his shoulder.

“I don't have to stay here and take this kind of talk,” Lesko said. “We'll all see on Saturday.”

“Mr. Van Dean is certainly very confident,” Stettler said, smiling half to the reporters, half to Pepper. Underneath the grin he'd begun to look a little stiff in his fancy suit. “His boundless optimism is one of the things we admire most about him.”

They spent the next half hour answering questions. The sportswriters pitched mostly slow balls and Lesko responded in his bored drone while Pepper cracked his jokes. The crowd wanted to know what would happen if Pepper managed to beat Lesko—he saw a few incredulous shakes of the head when the topic came up—and Stettler told them about Philadelphia. Immediate rematch clause, he said. Normal stuff for the world's heavyweight champion. And if Pepper lost? somebody asked.

“If I lose, you fellows will never see me again,” he said. “I'll go right back into retirement. If I can't beat a fat buffalo like Lesko, I don't deserve any more of your time.”

At that Lesko grunted, announcing he was finished with this folly. He shook off Stettler's hand and stood up, upsetting his chair. He'd turned to storm off the stage when the double doors at one side of the ballroom flew open and the reporters all turned, a booming new voice ringing through the crowd.

“What about this woman?” the voice demanded. “What will be done to assuage her terrible grief?”

Pepper's chin sagged down against his chest. He knew that voice without having to look, but after slowly squeezing all of the air from his lungs he glanced up to confirm it.

Boyd Markham was pushing his way through the sea of reporters, a fire-engine-red carnation pinned to the lapel of his best ringmaster's suit. His silver mane of hair was oiled to a high shine and
slicked back on his great lion's head. He was flanked by two dour men in black suits, guys Pepper had never seen before, both of them wearing a dusty, stone-faced look that said they could only be lawyers or undertakers. The sportswriters moved back to let them pass, and as they came to the front, Markham opened his arms like he wanted to take the whole room into an embrace. Something tightened like a screw at the base of Pepper's skull. It took him a moment to realize that Carol Jean was standing with him, her hair pinned up over a chaste black gown. She was staring, unblinking, at her own toes.

“What's the meaning of this?” Stettler sputtered, but his voice was lost in the din.

“Will these fat cats stand idly by as this poor woman goes uncompensated after the terrible loss of her husband?” Markham said, sounding like a preacher who had waited a long time to get his pulpit. “A man stolen from her in the prime of both their lives?”

Pepper looked over at Moira. She had moved forward and now stood squeezing a handkerchief at the fringe of the curtain.

Many of the reporters looked confused and were whispering to each other, while others were just struggling to keep up with their shorthand. Pepper thought he saw the ringmaster flash a quick smile his way before his face flattened back into pious sincerity. One of the sportswriters who'd come to the hunting camp in Montana had also worked his way to the front.

“What makes you think the Negro's whore deserves a dime?” he called.

Markham didn't look at the man or acknowledge him in any way. Instead he dug a meaty claw into the inside pocket of his jacket and came out with a sheaf of paper folded into thirds. “I hold in my hand a service contract signed both by myself and Mr. Pepper Van Dean,” Markham said, leveling a finger in his direction. “It clearly elucidates that I am owed a fifty-percent stake of any earnings he collects through professional wrestling or any other like athletic endeavor.”

“You unbelievable fuck,” Pepper said, putting his fists on the table and rising from his chair.

He felt Fritz's hand on him and sank back into his seat. The reporters were now in an out-and-out frenzy, trying to yell questions all at once. Markham rolled on as if they were flies buzzing around his head.

“Having been contacted by the recently widowed Mrs. Taft,” he said, “my legal analysts and I request an audience with the promoters of this weekend's farce. We demand satisfaction on her behalf. Might I suggest we retire to better-sequestered environs to discuss these rather delicate matters?”

At the center of the stage Stettler stood gripping the lectern. He'd been joined by a couple of O'Shea's goons, their heads pressed together as they conferred. All at once O'Shea's men broke off from the stage, hopping down to usher Markham and Carol Jean out a side door while several of the reporters tried to follow.

“Gentlemen,” Stettler said, holding up his hands for quiet. “We thank you for attending this event today. Our apologies for the unplanned outburst. We assure you it will be sorted out in short order and we look forward to seeing all of you ringside on Saturday night. It should be an interesting endeavor, to say the least.”

As soon as he turned away from the crowd the smile died on his face. He crossed the stage to Pepper in two quick steps. “My suite,” he hissed.
“Now.”