Champion of the World (39 page)

B
oyd Markham had helped himself to a drink and a small bowl of mixed nuts by the time they got to Stettler's suite. Only Fritz came over to greet them as one of O'Shea's goons let them inside. Carol Jean sat in an armchair, making a point of not looking at anyone. Stettler, Lesko and O'Shea skulked around in the far corner.
Around the table, Markham's lawyers had been joined by another group of men Pepper had never seen before. He assumed they must be lawyers who belonged to O'Shea and Stettler. They were engrossed by a series of papers they had set out in front of them.

During the long walk up, a hard rock had formed between his shoulder blades. Moira climbed the stairs in front of him and he tried to focus on the backs of her shoes to keep everything from going red. When they got to the landing at the top, she turned and whispered to him that no matter what happened inside the suite, he needed to keep calm. Her eyes were bright and wet, but her gaze was steady. She was in full cardsharp mode now, he knew, watching everything with a calculated stillness that came just before the biggest bet of the evening.

He nodded to her and said that he would go easy, but as soon as they were inside, his rage bubbled up again and he tried to get ahold of Markham.

“I should have known you'd come back begging for scraps,” he said. Fritz and Stettler held him back.

Markham reared away, a stricken look on his face, nuts and salt spilling onto the carpet. “A fool never appreciates when his disgraces are his own making,” he remarked, as if repeating a prayer to himself.

Even after Fritz and Stettler turned him loose, Moira held on to his arm to make sure he was settled. “I don't know where you ran across this skunk,” she said to Carol Jean, “but I know he's not looking after your best interests.”

Carol Jean looked every bit the petulant child. “I just want what I'm owed,” she said.

“You're owed nothing,” Fritz said. “You'll get nothing.”

“We'll see about that,” Markham said.

He was right, and knowing it made Pepper want to go after him all over again. For an icy half hour they all sat in the hotel suite while
the lawyers went over the papers, then another fifteen minutes while Stettler and Fritz followed the men in suits into a back bedroom, where he could hear their muffled voices going back and forth behind the door. The entire time Markham sat perched on a high-backed barstool like a great toad, leering at Pepper and refilling his drink each time he drained it. Lesko also watched him, nothing knowable in his flat eyes. Only Carol Jean seemed to have no interest in Pepper, Moira or in anything else in the room. She merely sat still, occasionally dabbing at the corners of her eyes with a handkerchief.

“We could have done this another way,” Moira said to her. “You could have just come to me. We could have worked out a deal between the two of us.”

“A deal?” she said, finally showing them the full fury in her eyes. “Would you say a deal between us would work out better or worse for me than the one these men had with my husband?”

Every muscle in Pepper's body tensed. Mixed in with his confusion and anger, he couldn't stop himself from feeling sorry for her. He didn't know exactly what Markham had promised Carol Jean, but he thought he understood a bit of what she was going through. He recognized the proud set of her shoulders, her boiling glare not quite covering up the pain beneath. He remembered what that was like. He knew how easy it could be to let yourself be taken in by the carnival barker's smooth talk, especially when you had nothing else left to believe in. Markham had told her he could win the day for her. He'd told her he could get her a bit of money, enough to start over, and had done it well enough that she believed him. Sitting there, Carol Jean thought the terms they'd struck were legitimate, even though everyone else in the hotel suite knew Markham was just a swindler. She was just his new mark.

“I know this has been hard for you . . .” he said.

“Don't pretend to know a thing about me,” Carol Jean said. “Three years I waited for that man. Visiting him in that awful place.
I took his name. I lost my family. When he got out, I suffered his moods, his peculiar behaviors, his rages and spells. I stayed when he told me we were broke. I stayed after he stopped sleeping with me. I followed him to the middle of nowhere and gave him the prime years of my life, and now he's gone and all of it means nothing. What would you do?”

His response was cut off by the sound of the bedroom door opening. Stettler and Fritz exited, followed by their troop of lawyers. Everyone stood as Stettler came to the center of the room like a world leader about to give a great speech. His ridiculous dyed hair tumbled into his eyes and he swept it away with the back of his hand. “I regret to report,” he said, “that Mr. Markham's contract appears genuine. It's a strongly worded agreement, to say the least.”

“So,” Pepper said, rising from his seat. “What's that mean?”

“It means,” one of Markham's lawyers said, “you owe our client restitution for damages and reimbursement for the losses he incurred after you left him in the lurch some months ago.”

“Restitution?” Pepper said, the word jabbing him like a bone in something he was eating.

“This is ridiculous,” Moira said. “It was
Markham
that abandoned
us
, not the other way around.”

“I'm afraid it's your word against his on that aspect,” the lawyer said, “and the contract makes it quite clear. Mr. Van Dean's no-compete clause bars him from performing with another outfit in any similar endeavor, athletic or theatrical, for up to two years. On top of that, there's the matter of Mr. Markham's losses at the box office after your departure, plus advance-advertising monies spent publicizing appearances with the Markham & Markham Overland Carnival that Mr. Van Dean failed to make. Plus the transport of Mr. and Mrs. Van Dean's belongings back to New York, at considerable expense, plus the deposit and rent money Mr. Markham spent keeping rooms for you at the Hotel St. Agnes—”

“Enough,” Pepper said. He could not contain himself any longer. He stormed past the lawyer and into the bedroom. The contract was laid out on a small side table and he went and stood over it, doing his best to look like he was seeing it for the first time.

“Well,” Fritz said from behind him. “Is it your signature?”

Of course it was, but could he tell them that? Could he explain what life had been like for them those years ago? How desperate they'd been when they lost the house? That they had no way to make a living? Could he explain to them that back then he would've signed anything Markham put in front of him if it meant a little money in his pocket? No, he couldn't, and he wouldn't. It would mean nothing to them. These were not men who dealt in real life. They dealt in contracts, in fine print and stipulations. When he turned to face them they were all standing in the doorway, the lawyers huddled in the background. Carol Jean and Moira had not left the sitting area, as if they both already knew the outcome.

“You sons of bitches,” he said, to all of them. “How much will we owe?”

“There will have to be a legal proceeding,” one of Markham's lawyers said. “Ultimately, it will be up to a judge. But, given the circumstances, we feel justified in petitioning for approximately eighty-five percent of your earnings from the wrestling match, plus a share of the wages you incurred working for Mr. Mundt and Mr. Stettler in recent months.”

Pepper ignored him, closing in on Markham again. The carnival barker looked like he wanted to suck his fat face all the way into his neck to get away, but he stood his ground.

“This is you all over,” Pepper said. “You show up after all this time, shouting accusations and waving your papers. You never saw a headline you didn't want to steal, did you?”

“I'm sure I don't know what you mean,” Markham said.

“This woman,” Pepper said, pointing at Carol Jean. “Hasn't she
been through enough? You've got the contract and she means nothing to you. But you couldn't resist playing yourself off as the hero, could you? What is she? Your insurance policy? Make a big stink in the papers so O'Shea can't sic his goons on you? Sing a song looking for sympathy so I won't try to drag this out?”

From the way Markham's grin flickered across his face, Pepper knew he was right. “Drag it out?” Markham said, again sounding like they were two friends just shooting the breeze. “Pepper, we're just talking about the worst thing that could happen here. Really, there's no need for judges or courtrooms or a messy altercation in the press. As I was saying, I'm certain we can come to terms on a one-time lump-sum payment to settle this matter before the end of the weekend.”

“Yeah?” Pepper said. “This ought to be good. How much?”

Markham made a show of collecting himself, rocking back on his heels and standing up straight. “Seventy-five percent,” he said.

“I'll tell you what's going to happen,” Pepper said. “I'm going to murder you. I'm going to kill you and I'm going to drag your fat body out where no one will ever—”

“Mr. Van Dean”—this was one of the lawyers again—“I assure you, sir, your threats of physical violence—witnessed here by each of us—are not helping your case.”

“You and I both know that contract is very real,” Markham added.

Pepper said it seemed like they had very different definitions of what that word meant. He said if Markham felt, by some twisted bastardization of the truth, that he and Moira somehow owed him more than the five years of their lives they'd already given him, he was free to file suit in court. They would meet his challenge with everything they had, he said, and if Markham was that kind of man, they would let a judge decide what everyone was owed.

“Seventy-five percent, eighty-five, whatever,” Pepper said. “But
it'll be slow going, and you won't get a dime from me until the agents show up to take it straight out of my hands.”

As he was talking, they all stood around looking at him. Moira had gone to stand by the suite's main door, looking as white as death. Near the end of his speech, Markham's other lawyer came and leaned one shoulder against the wall behind the carnival barker. He had his hands in the pockets of his slacks and a smug look on his face that made Pepper want to squeeze his neck until his eyeballs popped out.

“Frankly,” the lawyer said. “If that's the route you want to take, we may ask for all of it.”

A
s soon as they got back to their room, Moira sank onto the love seat and tried to massage the ache out of her jaw. She felt shaky and ill, as if she hadn't eaten, even though she and Pepper had wolfed down a big room service lunch just before the press conference. The fact that she'd been expecting something like this all along had done little to prepare her for the moment Boyd Markham came through the crowd with Carol Jean at his heels. After her encounter with them in the promoter's suite, she wasn't sure if she wanted to slap Carol Jean's face or lend her a hanky.

She didn't have any time to dwell on it, as Fritz and Billy Stettler barged into the room before she and Pepper could get settled. Both men were still wearing their press conference suits, but Fritz looked shrunken and tired inside his. Stettler moved around the room with the hectic buzz of a drug user. He was a strange-looking fellow, with artificially colored hair and the puffed-up body of a man who had nothing better to do than exercise.

“We'll have to get our own account of it in tomorrow's papers,” Stettler was saying, moving to one side of the room to examine a painting hanging over the bed.

“This changes nothing, of course,” Fritz said. He'd lingered
behind in the doorway, propping one hand on a little table like he was afraid he might keel over. “We still have our agreements, which everyone must continue to honor. Forge ahead and let the courts sort it out later, that's what I say.”

“Or just pay Markham out from your end and be done with it,” Stettler said to Pepper, who was sitting on the opposite corner of the bed, hands on knees.

Fritz looked surprised by Stettler's suggestion, but then he nodded. “That's right,” he said. “I hate to sound callous, but this situation has very little to do with any of us.”

“Far be it from you to sound callous, Freddy,” Moira said.

“What I want to know,” Pepper said, half quiet like he was talking to himself, “is how he managed to get in her ear.”

They all suddenly turned to Moira, and the surprise of it made her sit up straight. Up to that point the men had all but ignored her, as if she had no real part to play in their drama. Now, as their eyes all fell on her, she was angry. Did they think she was Carol Jean's keeper? In addition to consoling the poor woman, was she supposed to have her on a leash? Guard her against salesmen, bill collectors and the odd carnival owner who might come out of the woodwork trying to bilk her?

“I'm sure I don't know,” she said, and it seemed to satisfy them, even though as she said it the pieces were falling into place in her mind. That morning, when Carol Jean hadn't answered her knock, Moira had just assumed she must have wandered down to the restaurant. Late the night before she'd stopped by to find her in unexpectedly high spirits. She'd put on fresh clothes and was drifting around, inspecting the furnishings, offering to pour drinks, just as she would have done on any late night at the hunting camp. There was still sadness in her eyes, but at least she was back among the world of the living. When Moira commented on it, Carol Jean flashed a funny,
embarrassed smile and said she knew things were going to work out. In the moment Moira took it for good news. Now she wondered if her instincts were slipping.

Stettler had walked over to where Pepper was sitting. “You sure about all this?” he said. “It's not too late to go back to the original plan. We do that? It makes everybody a lot happier. Maybe we can work something out, find a way to get you paid off the books in a way that fat fuck can't touch.”

A look of hope passed across Pepper's face. “You would do that?”

Stettler grinned and Moira nearly laughed to see how straight and white his teeth looked. Like a row of marble gravestones in his mouth. “Sure we would, Pepper,” he said, her husband's name ringing artificial in his voice. “We'd do practically anything if we thought it would get you on board with us long-term. Wouldn't we, Fritzie?”

“By all means,” Fritz said, though he hadn't moved from his spot.

Pepper shook his head, chasing away a pleasant dream. “You heard Markham,” he said. “The non-compete runs two years. You could pay me under the table that long?”

Stettler shrugged, turning his palms at his sides as if to say,
Why not?

Moira stood up. She put her hand on Pepper's shoulder. “It won't work,” she said. “If Boyd Markham thinks he's owed that money, he won't rest until he gets it. Lawyers, Pinkertons—he knows just as many unsavories as your man O'Shea, I assure you. You really want people like that constantly sniffing around your new scam?”

Stettler looked annoyed, like she wasn't supposed to know about their plans, but Moira didn't care. Pepper had told her of Stettler's idea to fix the wrestling business the morning after they'd arrived in the city. He'd also informed her, in a matter-of-fact way, that he'd cut a side deal with Stanislaw Lesko to have their match be on the level. At the time, she'd done her best to smile at him and say she thought it was the right move, though she worried for him. It had
been so long since he'd been in a real wrestling ring, and Lesko was so much bigger. But if Markham's contract was genuine and things were spoiled anyway, she was glad he would get his chance and was happy to see how dismayed it made the other men. It made her skin crawl to think of them getting duped into a long-term deal with Stettler, Mundt and O'Shea. Like a return to the carnival circuit, with more comfortable beds.

“Maybe our best bet is to get through the weekend,” Fritz said, “and sort the rest out later.”

Pepper shook his head again. His voice was suddenly grave, almost apologetic. A tone she seldom heard him use. “I know you fellows don't like it,” he said, “but I'm going to wrestle Stan Lesko in a square match on Saturday night. It's what Lesko and I both want. If Boyd Markham has got me over a barrel and there's nothing we can do to change that, then so be it.”

Stettler was nearing the end of his rope. “You'd wrestle Lesko nearly for free?” he said.

“This time,” Pepper said. “After I'm the world's heavyweight champion, perhaps we can restructure our agreement.”

The promoter's smile returned—those huge teeth—as if he'd just remembered he was talking with a crazy man. “That sounds like our cue to leave,” he said.

M
oira was worried Pepper would stay up all night, pacing a gully into the rug at the foot of the bed, but after they'd shared a meal of dry, flaky roast beef sandwiches and oily au jus—terrible, considering the price—he crashed into one of his dead-to-the-world sleeps on top of the bedspread, his shoes still on. She sat smoking in a lounger on the opposite side of the room, hoping he was dreaming about revenge.

He looked small and vulnerable on the big hotel bed, his ankles pressed together and his knees tucked almost to his waist. His hands occasionally fretted around his face, but otherwise he was at peace, his breathing barely audible as the hotel slammed and gurgled around them. Public spaces like this never settled all the way down, no matter what the hour. Doors crashed open and shut, pipes groaned in the walls. People shouted merrily to each other in the halls: old friends parting at the end of the night, traveling salesmen announcing they'd see each other at breakfast. A thousand strangers meeting to spend a single night under the same roof and in the morning scattering out into the world.

His face lost its edge as he slept, the nervous lines of his forehead going slack, his lips relaxing into a pout. It was the face of the man she had married, the one who was still out to make the whole world say uncle. She imagined this was what he must have looked like as a boy, before first his father and then the orphanage pounded him into something harsher. One of the things she loved about him was that he was never afraid, but sometimes she enjoyed watching him rest. The way he slept was part of how he lived, fighting and scratching against everything, as hard and as long as he could until he finally collapsed, exhausted and a million miles deep.

When her cigarette was finished she gathered what she needed and quietly left the room. It was late in the evening, but not so late that a man like Dion O'Shea wouldn't still be up. Even so, there was a moment of quiet surprise inside when she rapped on the door to O'Shea's suite, trying to make her knocks sound even and confident. The scowling thug who answered had eyebrows that nearly grew up into his widow's peak. He looked like he was about to close the door in her face when O'Shea himself appeared at his shoulder and insisted that she come in at once.

He'd been with the rest in Stettler's room earlier that day, but this was her first time seeing the gangster up close. He was of
unremarkable proportions, dressed neatly in a brown suit and a maroon polka-dot bow tie. His wispy hair was combed to one side and his round, sagging face reminded her of a frog. Brushing aside thoughts of how badly she'd missed the signs of Carol Jean's betrayal with Markham, she hoped O'Shea would be as easy to read as his friend James Eddy.

She made herself appear cool as she walked in and declined his offer of a drink. The way his hands fussed at his sides when she said no made her think he wanted one himself, but he left the bottle on the side table. He brought her into the suite's small sitting area, where the chairs were sturdier and done of finer woodwork than the stuff in their room. The man who'd answered the door sat a good distance behind her in a leather armchair, where she could hear the material squeaking under his weight. Having an audience gave the meeting a weird, staged feel, but she pretended not to mind. The important thing was to sell it, she knew, and so she needed to be calm and matter-of-fact. Just a person doing a favor for a man who she hoped could be her friend.

When she set the papers facedown on the table it was with the sure, captivating poise of her father. Since she'd come in, O'Shea had been chattering nonstop, saying how interesting it was to be working with her husband again, a note of irony flashing in his voice. He told her he was starting to know the Van Dean family as people who showed up at all hours when they had something important to say. He liked that, he said, he really did. As they were getting settled in their chairs he asked her if she was excited for the match.

“I've always been a man of sport,” he said. “A good fight, a fine wrestling match—there's just something exhilarating about it, don't you agree?”

She smiled at him, batted her eyes a little bit and said, “No, sir. I daresay I'm less excited for it than almost anything in my life.”

He grinned in response, and she could tell he liked her, maybe
thought she was pretty. He said he was sorry to hear about the death of Garfield Taft. He had always been intrigued by the Negro and had been hoping to see him give Stanislaw Lesko a test, even if Billy Stettler insisted that Lesko emerge the winner in the end. O'Shea said Stettler was angry now that Pepper had refused to take part in the fix and had foiled his plans to place bets on the match, but—leaning forward as if sharing a secret—O'Shea said he honestly didn't mind. In fact, he was interested in seeing her husband take on Lesko in a square match.

She nodded, encouraged by his openness. She hadn't expected him to play it that way, but it was a good thing.

“And now this Markham fellow,” he said, rattling on, almost like he'd been waiting for someone he could tell about it, “a great, fat slob of a man, eh? I hope he doesn't make too much trouble for you all.”

She took a deep breath, knowing it was time. Telling herself that every nickel poker table and backroom betting circle she'd ever taken part in had been leading her to this moment. The time for being scared had passed. She was here now, sitting with him, with the papers on the table. Second thoughts would only undermine her play. She was a gambler and it was time to gamble.

“That's precisely why I'm here,” she said. “I've come across a piece of information I feel might be helpful to you.”