by Chad Dundas
“I say it’s the stupidest thing I ever heard,” he said. “When you say exhibitions, you mean fixes, right? You mean business matches.” As he said it, the enormity of what they were suggesting spread out in front of him. Here he was sitting in a room with four of the most powerful men in wrestling and they were talking about turning the whole sport into a sideshow. He could scarcely believe it. He looked at Fritz but saw no shame in his big cow eyes, his bald head bobbing right along with Stettler. “That’s ludicrous,” he said. “Fans will smell the fix a mile off. They won’t stand for it.”
“Some people might be wise to it,” Stettler said, “but they won’t care. These working stiffs just want an excuse to get out of the house for an evening. We’ll give them the whole shebang—the drama, the excitement—it’ll be like moving pictures come to life.”
“What about the other promoters?” Pepper said. “They’ll make a mockery of you in the papers.”
“Dinosaurs,” Stettler said. “With O’Shea backing us, we own the papers. Same with the politicians. You won’t see any of our boys dragged through the mud or brought up on fraud charges, that’s a promise. Plus, we have Lesko. If anybody gets frisky and refuses to do business, he’ll whip them on the square. Inside of a year or two we’ll be the only game in town. Anybody who doesn’t go along will be out. Mark my words.”
“You can’t be serious,” Pepper said. “You’ll kill us. You’ll sink the whole thing.”
Stettler snorted. “Do you have any idea what’s happened to the wrestling business since you’ve been away?” he said. “While you spent the last five years traveling around with your little carnival act, the rest of us have been trying to save it. The whole thing is in the toilet. Nobody cares about it anymore.”
“Because Gotch retired,” Pepper said. “People loved Gotch. It happens. Business slacks off for a bit, but it always comes back up.”
“This time there’s no coming back,” Stettler said.
“Nobody wants to watch two guys pulling on each other for a three-hour match,” Fritz said. “They want to drink some suds, see a slam-bang show, and still get home at a reasonable hour.”
“Bullshit,” Pepper said. “Scientific wrestling is a huge drawing card.”
“We’re living in a new era,” Stettler said. “The sooner you make peace with it, the easier it’ll be on you.”
“You said yourself we’ve already got a sellout for tomorrow night,” Pepper said. “You’ll probably draw close to two hundred thousand dollars at the gate.”
“Maybe,” Stettler said, “but only because it’s a curiosity. Lesko versus Taft was a freak-show act from the beginning. People wanted to see something unique, and that’s exactly what we’ll give them with our new show. It’ll be better than the real thing. It’ll be bigger than the real thing. Hell, it’ll be bigger than baseball.”
Stettler seemed to swell as he became the center of attention, and now he was practically bursting with pride. His eyes were bright, and it occurred to Pepper that he really was a hell of a promoter. Still, he waved them away. “Fuck that,” he said. “I’m not doing it.”
Their heads dipped. This was starting to become a very tiresome experience for them, he could tell. It was late and none of them looked like they’d slept.
“You will so do it,” Fritz said.
“You’ll do it for the money,” Stettler said. “If you join up with us you stand to make upwards of fifty thousand dollars a year. That’s a damn spot better than the twenty-five dollars a week you were making as a carnival freak. You’ll do it because your other option is to sit there and make your little jokes while the rest of us drag this business out of the past and put it back in the big theaters. Deep down, the last thing you want is to be left out of that, am I right?”
“Besides,” O’Shea said, “let’s not act like you haven’t done this before. You’re getting a better deal from us than you got last time.”
Their eyes were hard, but there was something fragile in them, too. It was more than just fatigue. It was desperation. They needed him to do this. They had to get him to take this deal or their whole plan would go under. They would be out the building deposit and end up refunding thousands to people who’d already bought tickets. For maybe the first time in his life, the men in charge needed him more than he needed them, and he savored for a moment the feeling of being the thorn in the lion’s paw. He was going to let them dangle for as long as he could before he told them to go fuck themselves. Really, what could they do? Kill him? He supposed they could try. He could roll the dice, walk out of this room, and let them come for him if that’s what they decided. First they’d have to catch him.
He was considering all this when Lesko spoke, his low rumbling voice flat and forceful in the quiet room. “He’ll do it,” he said, “but not for the money. That’s not why.”
Pepper crooked an eyebrow and beckoned for him to get on with it. “Oh?” he said. This, at least, was interesting.
“Make no mistake, you will do it,” Lesko said. “From the moment you walked in here with that stupid, self-satisfied grin on your face there wasn’t a chance in the world you were going to turn this offer down.”
Pepper crossed his legs, ankle on knee. “How can you be so sure?” he said.
“You know how many men I’ve met just like you?” Lesko said. “How many Wild West cowboys with more guts than brains have tried to test me? A hundred. Hell, a thousand. I know that somewhere in the back of that pea brain of yours there’s a fantasy that you can beat me. You’re gonna walk out that door and leave your chance lying on the table? No way.”
He was right, but Pepper didn’t want to give him the satisfaction. He said: “We won’t learn a thing if the fix is on.”
Lesko shook his head, dismissive. “It’ll be enough,” he said. “I’ll give you a taste of what I could do to you and you’ll know straightaway. Never in a million years, little man, would you have a chance against me on the level. A million fucking years.”
Pepper’s shirt suddenly felt tight across his back and he willed himself to relax. He wondered if they’d put Lesko up to this, if this had been their plan all along: to have the promoters show a little leg and then get the champion to swoop in to close the deal. He fought hard not to let his expression crack when he spoke again. “I’m going to go real slow now, so that even the big ox can understand,” he said. “I’m not wrestling a business match. I won’t do it. Not for you, not for anybody. Call me old-fashioned, but I liked it better when the two guys in the ring got to decide who won and who lost. You remember that, you assholes? The two guys out there sweating and bleeding and pouring their guts out? You want me in on this thing, there’s only one way to do it.”
The only thing that moved in the room were Lesko’s eyes as he looked at Stettler. “I can beat him, Billy,” he said. “That’s not a problem.”
“Absolutely not,” Stettler said. “Aside from the gate, Mr. O’Shea and I have substantial gambling interests at stake here. Sending you out there for a prick-measuring contest puts all of that at risk.”
A coaster stuck to the bottom of O’Shea’s drink as he lifted it from the table. He plucked it off with a little pop, a lazy grin uncoiling on his face. “Don’t do anything on my account,” he said. “If the principals insist on a legitimate confrontation, well, it might be worth it to me just to watch.”
Stettler stared at him as if he couldn’t believe it. He said the gangster’s name, but O’Shea didn’t look at him, just continued fiddling with the coaster as he set it back on the table. Stettler turned back to Lesko, who hadn’t budged. Finally he fluttered both his hands in the air, a womanly gesture. “Sure,” he said. “Why not just chuck months of planning at the last moment. It looks like I’m outvoted again. Congratulations, Mr. Van Dean, you’ve just inherited the beating of a lifetime.”
“I want a hundred thousand dollars,” Pepper said.
“I want it in cash before the match, and that’s just for the weekend. We’ll talk about Philadelphia after.”
“Fifty,” said Stettler. “Don’t push it.”
“Fine,” Pepper said. “If I find out you’re trying to fuck me, you’ll be sorry. If I even think I smell a double cross, your little partnership won’t make it out of New York in one piece.”
O’Shea grinned. “I’ve always enjoyed you,” he said. “Never a dull moment.”
They had the contracts already drawn up and laid out on the small table in the adjoining dining room. Pepper watched over their shoulders and Stettler and Fritz changed the terms of his compensation from the thirty thousand they’d previously promised Taft to fifty thousand. O’Shea produced a pen from his jacket and Pepper signed, then stood back while the heavyweight champion applied his own wide, looping signature.
“You,” Pepper said, as Lesko turned away, going back to the sideboard and discarding his empty glass. “You’ve got yours coming.”
Lesko didn’t look back as he walked out of the room, closing the door to a connecting suite quietly behind him. Pepper stared at the door until Stettler broke the spell by saying someone would have to alert the press.
The 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,” Pe
pper 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.