Champion of the World

by Chad Dundas

  “A boxer will never beat a wrestler in a match where both striking and grappling are allowed,” he said. “That wouldn’t be any kind of contest at all.”

  This seemed to please Lesko and he nodded slowly. Stettler scowled.

  “Could be Kearns knows it, too,” he said. “I’m starting to wonder if he’s just using us for the publicity.”

  O’Shea pulled his chin up from his whiskey glass. “What are we doing here?” he said. “Shooting the shit?”

  Stettler put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “Dion is right,” he said. “We’re dealing with a limited window of opportunity to make this match. After the New Year we’ll be spending most of 1922 touring France.”

  “They love me,” Lesko said, “the French.”

  “As I said, at first I was inclined to tell you and your darkie to take a flying leap,” Stettler said. “We had a rematch with Stecher lined up. Put a deposit down on the Garden and everything. Then, bang, Stecher tears up his knee in training for a vaudeville show. Some kind of song and dance number, you believe that? So you see our dilemma.”

  Fritz whistled low, letting them know he felt their pain.

  “We pull out, we forfeit our deposit,” Stettler said. “Besides, nobody wants to keep the world’s title on the shelf until next year, least of all Stan.”

  “What kind of gate did you expect out of another match with Stecher?” Fritz asked.

  “I’d hesitate to estimate,” Stettler said, cagey as ever. “Their first bout was a hard-fought draw.”

  “Yes, but in their second and third, Lesko whipped him like a rented mule,” Fritz said. “Ballpark it. Eighty thousand dollars?”

  “That sounds about right.” Stettler smirked.

  “You wrestle Garfield Taft instead of Joe Stecher at Madison Square Garden in December and I guarantee we double that,” Fritz said. “I guarantee we outdraw Gotch versus Hackenschmidt.”

  It was a bold statement. Stettler laced his fingers over his belly and contemplated it. “We have a block of rooms at the Plaza Hotel,” he said, making it sound almost like a concession. “I’m sure we could find someplace with heat and hot water for Mr. Taft nearby.”

  “Fine, fine,” Fritz said.

  “Wait,” Pepper said. “When exactly are we talking about here?”

  “The date we have at the Garden is the week before Christmas,” Stettler said. “Of course, we’d have to know all our stipulations would be met.”

  “You have our full cooperation,” Fritz said.

  Pepper shook his head. “It’s too soon,” he said. “Taft won’t be ready.”

  Now that he’d gotten a look at Strangler Lesko up close, Pepper had his doubts that Taft could beat him on his best day, but just a few months to get ready would make it impossible. Taft was far too out of shape: Lesko, sitting there at the side of the room with a face as blank as a sheet of glass, would wipe the mat with him.

  “We need more time,” he said to Fritz.

  Fritz waved him away. “Is this your official word?” he said to Stettler. “You’ll grant Taft a shot at Lesko’s title?”

  Stettler said nothing. He held his chin in his hand and looked at O’Shea.

  “He wouldn’t be here if he wasn’t going to do it,” O’Shea said. “Would he?”

  “Fritz,” Pepper said.

  “Point of fact, we’re loath to do it,” Stettler said. “Stan would rather not soil his hands and I personally think it sets a fairly dangerous precedent. I’m just not sure we have a choice at this point.”

  “Is anybody hearing me?” Pepper said. “Taft’s been out of significant action too long to put a rush on it like this. You’ll have to get somebody else. Earl Caddock. One of the Zbyszkos, maybe. If Lesko wins, we’ll take him on whenever you get back from France.”

  “I didn’t realize you were here to negotiate on behalf of Earl Caddock,” Stettler said.

  “Caddock hasn’t been the same since the war,” Pepper said. “Lesko whips him easy. We just need more time, that’s all. If my name’s going to be attached to this thing, I’m not happy to arrange a squash for you people. Give me until the spring to coach Taft up and I guarantee he hands Lesko his ass.”

  It wasn’t true, but his blood was up now from being ignored. He glanced at Lesko, expecting some kind of reaction, but the world’s champion hadn’t budged. O’Shea’s small, sly smile showed itself again as he placed his tumbler on a small side table. “Mr. Van Dean,” he said. “I assure you Taft won’t need long to prepare for this kind of match.”

  “What would you know about it?” Pepper said before it dawned on him. Moira’s voice in his head again. He turned to Fritz. “Oh, for crying out loud. You told them we’d throw it?”

  “You know we can’t take the chance,” Fritz said, looking angry with him. “None of us would ever hear the end of it if Taft should win.”

  Pepper was livid, partly from being lied to and partly from not figuring it out sooner. He glanced at O’Shea, whose level, unblinking stare seemed to go right through him. He imagined himself putting the gangster on the floor and beating him until his arms got tired and O’Shea’s blood spattered on his shirt. Instead, he smoothed the wrinkles out of his pants. “‘We’?” he said.

  “Mr. Van Dean,” Stettler said. “We’re sure you understand, considering the circumstances and what’s at stake here.”

  “Sure, I get it,” Pepper said. “You’d have a hard time selling kinetic fitness brochures and Strangler Lesko signature hair tonic after losing to a jailbird with the wrong color of skin, is that about right?”

  Lesko bristled. “For the record,” he said, “this isn’t my idea.”

  “What a relief,” Pepper said, letting the champ get a full look at how unimpressed he was.

  “My only stipulation,” Lesko said, “is one fall only. Let’s not drag this out any longer than we absolutely have to.”

  “It’ll be huge,” Fritz said, smiling now. “I’ve got people in the press who’ll play it up as the match of the century. Taft will make the perfect villain.”

  “I have no doubt the papers will have a field day with it,” Stettler said.

  “Bullshit,” Pepper said. “We don’t agree to these terms.”

  “Sure you do,” O’Shea said. “It’s all you can do.”

  “It would be a mistake, sir,” Pepper told him, “for you to think you can still tell me what to do.”

  His face was flushed and they all stopped what they were doing to look at him. Even Lesko folded his arms and regarded him as you might a man who’d climbed out on a ledge.

  “Pepper,” Fritz said. “This is the only way.”

  “The only way to what?” he said. “The only way to make fools of ourselves in front of the whole world? The only way to steal away another man’s dream?”

  Fritz looked as if every muscle in his body was cramping up. “One way or another, I’m leaving this room with a signed bout agreement for Garfield Taft to wrestle Stanislaw Lesko at Madison Square Garden in December,” he said. “I’ll do it with your cooperation or without it, so I suppose the only thing you need to decide is whether you want your cut.”

  Fritz hadn’t moved from his chair, but Pepper suddenly had the sense they were closer together, confiding, just the two of them. The look on his face said everything: He needed this. He was desperate for it. It was a familiar look, a kind of desperation that Pepper had seen in his own eyes more times than he cared to remember. He sat back, feeling like the bottom had dropped out of his stomach. He knew it had already been decided and nothing he could say would change that. He thought of Moira, probably sitting alone in their cabin at the hunting camp at that moment. What would they do if this job went belly-up? Looking around at O’Shea, Stettler and Lesko, he felt full of rage but swallowed it down, at least for the moment.

  “Fine,” he said. “Sig
n whatever papers you want. We’re not done talking about this.”

  He felt very aware of his hands as he placed them on his knees.

  O’Shea held up his empty glass until one of his mugs came and got it for a refill. He said: “Should I ring up the lawyers?”

  Everyone stood up. Stettler and Lesko shook Fritz’s hand and then turned to offer their hands to Pepper, too. He just let them hang there until the other men took them back.

  “Who’s going to tell Taft he’s the world’s biggest tackling dummy?” Pepper asked. “He’s not liable to take it with a smile and a pat on the back.”

  “Yes,” Stettler said. “About that . . .”

  He had the sense they were all looking at him again as Fritz cleared his throat. “We feel it should be you to break the news.”

  “What?” Pepper said. “Why me?”

  “He’ll respect the situation more if it comes from you,” Fritz said. “Brothers in arms and all that.”

  “Don’t baby the poor fellow,” Stettler scoffed. He turned to Pepper. “Why, we’re relying on your technical expertise in the catch-as-catch-can style. We weren’t lying about that part.”

  “I don’t follow,” Pepper said, this whole meeting reminding him what it felt like when that big millworker punched him in the face again and again.

  “Before he went to prison, Taft had a reputation as a man who wouldn’t do business,” O’Shea said. “Word is, they asked him to lie down for Joe Stecher and he flatly refused. Our hope is that he learned a thing or two from his time away. If not, well . . .”

  “We’ll need you to cripple him,” Stettler said.

  Pepper sank back into his seat. He glanced at Fritz, who was still standing there with a drink in his hand. “I get it now,” he said. “That line about how you needed a hard man to get Taft ready for Lesko’s catch wrestling style. That was all hot air, wasn’t it?”

  “We’re jumping to conclusions here,” Fritz said. “We don’t even know how Taft will react.”

  “You needed someone hard all right,” Pepper said. “But you needed someone who would play ball, too, isn’t that it? Well, you got the wrong guy. I won’t do that.”

  Stettler had the bout agreement in his hand and he grinned as he passed it to Fritz. “A minute ago you said you wouldn’t sign off on a fixed match,” he said. “But here we are.”

  It was as if things clicked frozen for a moment, like they’d all been caught in the lens of a flash photograph. Stettler smiling as Fritz took the papers from his hand, O’Shea at his elbow, unreadable as ever, and Lesko staring into space like he couldn’t be bothered with any of it any longer. Pepper closed his eyes and thought of Whip Windham leaning in his corner across the ring, a little smile on his lips that said he knew he was about to have the easiest night of his life. He felt the old stab of shame, the guilt weighing down his heart. Maybe it had never left him. He wanted to shout and scream and hurl his chair through the big window behind Lesko’s head, but he didn’t. He just sat there watching Fritz sign the papers, feeling his chest rise and fall under his shirt.

  “Don’t look so surprised, Mr. Van Dean,” O’Shea said. “This is the sort of arrangement you’re intimately familiar with, is it not?”

  For three days and nights Moira stayed inside the cabin, coming out only to fill the water bucket or visit the outhouse. Since the morning she stood by the window and watched Taft carry a blanket and pillow out to the old garage, walking deliberately, head up, not looking back, she’d seen no sign of him, nor any trace of Carol Jean. A couple of times James Eddy came out to take his car into town, and the more she saw of him the more convinced she became that he was a man with a secret. The way he moved—constantly looking around like he was afraid someone would pop out of the bushes and catch him at something he wasn’t supposed to be doing—made her almost want to laugh. Aside from Eddy, no one was talking or moving inside the camp, and the stillness was like something frozen inside her chest.

  The cold afternoon of the fourth day she was boiling water for coffee when she heard the sound of an approaching motor. She went out onto the porch and after a few minutes saw a car crest the hill at the end of the long gravel drive. Fritz Mundt was behind the wheel, with Pepper bouncing along next to him in the passenger seat. Her heart leapt when she saw him, but the car didn’t slow down as it passed. She raised her hand to wave and he waved back, his face looking almost completely healed now, but he made no move to tell Fritz to stop as a cloud of grit enveloped her. Blinking, she watched them pile out in front of the lodge.

  Carol Jean met them at the door, bracing herself in the entryway, looking brittle and hard in the failing light. Fritz hurried past, only nodding to her as he slipped into the house. When Pepper tried to follow, she blocked his way with her arm. Moira couldn’t hear what they were saying, but Carol Jean clutched a half-empty highball glass in one hand. As her mouth curled into a sticky-sweet sneer Moira started up the hill toward them. Pepper looked back at her and then Carol Jean slammed the door, leaving him staring at the old, scarred wood for a second before he turned around.

  At first Moira thought he would meet her halfway up the hill, but before she could get closer than forty yards, he took off toward the garage, his face clouding over and his steps quickening. He broke into a run and she dashed after him, calling his name, her breath torn away from her lips in ragged gusts of wind. Her heel snagged on something and she lost her shoe, sliding on the wet ground, wrenching an ankle as she righted herself. At the top of the rise he disappeared into the dark of the garage and she slowed, knowing she was too late. She heard a muffled yell and then the whole building shimmied as one of its sideboards cracked from the inside.

  She began to run again and was out of breath when she reached the garage, mud splattered on the hem of her dress. The two men were standing at the far side of the room, Taft bracing Pepper against the wall, his long arms taut and shaking from the effort. They were both shouting at once and for a moment it seemed they were in a stalemate, but then Pepper kicked Taft on the inside of the leg, the sound like a gunshot, and they both went down in a heap.

  She screamed at them to stop, but as Taft tried to scramble up, Pepper climbed onto his back, driving a fist into his face. He hit him again and again until Taft was able to get to his feet. Plucking Pepper off his back, Taft whipped him through the air, legs flailing, sending him crashing down onto the nearby wrestling mat. From the sickening thud he made, Moira thought he must be dead, but then Pepper rolled toward Taft, trying to snare one of his legs. Taft saw this and smashed a massive fist down on the side of Pepper’s head, the blow producing a thick, whumping sound. She got between them, the two not having noticed her crossing the distance from the doorway to the wrestling mat.

  Grabbing them both by their shirts, she yelled for them to stop, swearing at them in the thick, strange voice of someone else. She was close enough to smell the blood and sweat on them, but still they acted like they hadn’t heard. They shouted and clawed at each other over the top of her head and then Pepper reared back and fired off a last punch. He was off balance and stumbled, missing his mark. His fist clipped Moira behind the ear and the next thing she knew she was sitting on the wrestling mat with her legs stretched out like a doll. As she fell she pulled the men down with her, faintly aware of the sound of ripping cloth, their weight coming down on top of her. She sprawled back, blinking up at the roof, seeing flashes of gold and white in the darkness.

  “You son of a bitch,” Pepper said, out of breath. He was reaching across her, still grabbing at Taft. “What did you do to my wife?”

  Taft slapped his hand away, trying to get his wind. “Get off me,” he gasped. “Enough.”

  Putting one hand to the back of her head, Moira found an egg-sized knot there. She tried to sit up but didn’t have the strength. Her brain felt like it was trapped inside a beating kettledrum. Blood from Pepper’s chin dripped onto her dress a
nd across her bare neck, warm droplets in the cold air. She rolled over and vomited on the arm of his shirt.

  He let go of Taft and looked down at her. “Jesus,” he said.

  Taft crawled away, dragging himself by the elbow, making it just a few feet before collapsing on the mat again. “You’re crazy,” he said. His nose was bleeding, blood covering his mouth and chin. “You crazy bastard.”

  Moira covered her face with her arms. She smelled her own sick and the earth and mildew of the wrestling mat and felt a sudden lightness, like having nothing left inside her.

  Pepper rested his hand on her shoulder. “How do you feel?” he asked. “Are you okay?”

  “You’ll be fired for this,” Taft said. “I’ll sue you. I’ll sue Mundt, O’Shea. Everybody.”

  “You shut up,” Pepper said to him, then to Moira: “Are you all right?”

  “I didn’t do a thing with her,” Taft said, louder now, getting his breath. “I never touched her.”

  Pepper lunged for him again but Moira caught him by the belt. He pulled against her grip, but not hard enough to break it.

  “That’s not what your wife said.” Pepper pointed in the direction of the lodge. “Why would she lie?”

  “She’s not lying,” Taft said, “but she doesn’t know, either. She’s just trying to hurt me.”

  “For what?” Pepper said. “Why would she do that if you’re so goddamned innocent?”

  “She’s just angry,” Taft said, “and confused.”

  Moira rolled onto her back and looked at him, sitting now with his back propped against the wall of the garage.

  “I don’t understand,” she said.

  Taft readjusted himself against the wall, searching for a comfortable way to rest. The places where Pepper had hit him were starting to swell up under the leftovers of the black eye he’d gotten from Jack Sherry. Older wounds there, too, she thought, a lifetime of hurt passing across his eyes like a shadow moving over water. He shrugged, and she saw resignation take over.