Champion of the World (27 page)

A
fter two nights on a train, Fritz booked them adjoining rooms at the Blackstone, high enough up that Pepper could stand at his window staring down on Lake Michigan, the water looking like a sheet of metal in the chill. Chicago was battening down the hatches for winter, and everywhere they went people talked gloomily of snow and wind. They hoped things wouldn't be as bad as last year. The day of their appointment with Billy Stettler and Strangler Lesko, they ate a greasy hotel breakfast and then Fritz spent the rest of the morning locked in the bathroom. He emerged just in time to change for the meeting, looking green from nerves and breathing hard from the effort of squeezing into his good shirt. The big guy had been on edge the whole trip, and as he stood in front of the mirror patting his head and face with a bathroom towel, Pepper hoped he didn't pop an artery from the stress. They took a cab across the river, and as soon as it dropped them in front of Scott's River North tailor shop near the intersection of Chicago and State, Pepper understood what Fritz was nervous about. He hadn't counted on meeting Dion O'Shea again.

It was a tombstone of a building: a simple two-story brick structure with shuttered windows, its green-and-white-striped awning
pulled out against looming rain clouds. He felt the itchy sensation of being watched as they approached the front door, wondering if it was just the hulking Catholic church that sat catty-corner from the store. Inside, they breathed the dusty smell of old cloth as they loitered in the showroom, waiting while the girl behind the counter helped a young man pick out a wedding suit. It turned out to be a process. When the man finally left and the bell above the door announced that Fritz and Pepper were alone in the store, the girl mumbled a few words into a wall-mounted telephone. She listened a moment and then hung up.

“You can go on up,” she said. “Boots off.”

They passed a glance but did as they were told, clomping up a short flight of stairs before stooping to unlace their shoes in the thick shag of the landing. They stood wiggling their toes while a million locks sprang open on the other side of a door and then a wide-shouldered goon with a hairline that swooped dangerously close to his eyebrows came out to pat them down. Pepper couldn't resist a grin, telling the guy all he was packing was five extra pounds of eggs, bacon, and flapjacks. The goon didn't react, just slid his hands around their bodies until he was satisfied and stood back to let them into the office with a bored stare that said they could stand out in the hallway all day for all he cared.

Compared to the cramped downstairs showroom, the office was airy and cool, dimly lit, the walls papered in a silver fleur-de-lis pattern. The goon who'd frisked them folded his hands over his crotch and stood to one side of the door. Another leaned against a sideboard while a pair of guys in shirtsleeves and shoulder holsters loomed behind where O'Shea sat in a high-backed chair. The gangster looked just as Pepper remembered, sitting with his legs crossed, his waxy, full moon face unchanged except for the roll of double chin that bubbled up from his collar. His gaze floated lazily from
Pepper to Fritz and back again, his expression reminding Pepper of a trophy animal, something that had been stuffed and put up on the wall. He didn't get up but offered them both a shake with a small, soft hand.

“The gang's nearly all here,” he said in a voice too lively for his death-warmed-over face. He made a show of checking his wristwatch, a new one, army issue. Pepper felt something twisting inside him at seeing him again. He and Fritz sat, and when O'Shea offered them drinks, Fritz nodded his head like a man dying of thirst. Pepper didn't respond but took a glass when one of the goons handed it to him. Everybody lit cigarettes and Pepper dug out his pouch of chewing tobacco. O'Shea watched them out of hooded eyes. “So,” he asked Pepper, sounding wholly unconcerned about getting a response. “How's the leg?”

Some guys just can't help themselves.

“The others,” Fritz said. “They're coming?”

Annoyance trembled on O'Shea's face. “I just said that, didn't I?” Then, as if scolding himself for showing emotion, his face went slack again and he said: “What about our other project?”

“‘Other project'?” Pepper said.

Fritz cleared his throat. “I had a telegram from Eddy this morning at the hotel,” he said. “He tells me everything arrived as scheduled.”

O'Shea held up a hand to stop Fritz from saying anything else and then pointed a finger at Pepper, a light playing in his eyes. “He doesn't know?” he said.

“Of course not,” Fritz said. “You said tell no one.”

“I always say tell no one,” O'Shea said, “and yet everyone always seems to know my business.”

Pepper was again about to ask what business, what other project, when it dawned on him that he was sitting in the private office of a
bootlegger, drinking a bootlegger's booze, surrounded by a bootlegger's goons. He heard Moira's voice in his head, chiding him for being so slow on the uptake. “Hey,” he said to O'Shea, “you're the one who brought it up. Why do that if I'm not supposed to know?”

O'Shea's jaw seemed to retreat into his face, as if he wasn't used to having his mistakes pointed out to him. They heard heavy footfalls on the stairs and a moment later they twisted in their chairs as Billy Stettler and Stanislaw “Strangler” Lesko came into the room.

Stettler was a few years older than Pepper. He was as tall as Fritz and had the build of a body sculptor, with a thick shock of dyed black hair and the energy of a much smaller man. He wore a navy-blue suit and a peacock-blue shirt with a gleaming silk tie that split the difference.

“Our noble savages,” he exclaimed. “Just in from the wild frontier and looking none the worse for wear. Well, not much worse.”

He slapped Fritz on the shoulder, and Fritz dropped back into his chair as if it were a knockout blow. Pepper's eyes had already drifted behind Stettler, where the world's heavyweight champion was standing in his stocking feet.

He knew at once they couldn't beat him.

Lesko was not so much tall or wide as all-around massive. His chest was thick and flat and his head was like a heavy piece of granite, gray-brown hair razored flush to the sides. His face was kind and large-featured, with soft, almond-shaped eyes and a prominent nose. A thick scar cut a furrow through one eyebrow, but otherwise he looked like he'd never been in a fight in his life. He made a show of looking them over, uncurious, before sliding his hands into the pockets of his brown slacks. It was a simple, unpretentious move, but every dimension of the room seemed to have changed with him in it. This was a man, Pepper thought, and had to check the urge to stand up and shake his hand.

He only had a second to study Lesko before Stettler was in his face, buzzing forward as if he might hug him or punch him. He did neither, drawing back at the last moment, talking a mile a minute. “Long time no see, kid,” he said. “I heard you became a sideshow freak. It made me sad when I heard that. You should've called me when Blomfeld cut you loose. I could've found a spot for you in my stable. Not for nothing, but when it came to scientific wrestling, you were just about the best I ever saw—present company excluded, of course. Too bad you weren't a hundred pounds heavier, am I right?” This time he did lean forward to punch him on the arm.

Pepper felt his whole body stiffen, a grimace screwing itself tightly to his face. “I did call you, Billy,” he said, straining to keep his voice level.

“You did?” Stettler said, though of course he'd known that all along. “Oh.”

There had once been a time when Pepper, Fritz and Stettler had all been at the same place in life, just some of the boys, knocking around trying to eke out a living. Pepper had been the best of them on the mat and had risen the highest. Now, though, only one of them owned a busy gym on Michigan Avenue. Only one of them managed the world's heavyweight champion. Pepper thought he saw a ripple of satisfaction pass through Stettler's body as he hummed across the room to shake hands with O'Shea, as if he'd already assessed them and judged them small-time.

He prodded the tobacco in his lip with the tip of his tongue. Something was making him feel light-headed, dizzy, but he couldn't tell if it was the chew or the company. Lesko lowered himself onto the edge of a filing cabinet and stared out a side window. He looked as if he were the only person in the room.

“Billy,” Fritz said again, his voice shrill with anticipation. “You called us here. We're here.”

Stettler settled into an armchair at O'Shea's elbow. “Indeed,” he said, folding his hands across his knee. “I've had word out of Bellingham. Sounds like Alaskan Jack Sherry was no match for your man.”

“Taft was impressive,” Fritz said, nodding.

“He looked like shit,” Pepper said, “but we'll have him ticking like a clock before we let him anywhere near Strangler Lesko, you can rest assured of that.”

Lesko turned his face halfway from the window at the sound of his name. “I told Billy,” he said like he was tired of repeating himself. “I won't wrestle a colored.”

Fritz's voice sailed up another note. “Taft was considered the top contender for Joe Stecher's title a few years ago,” he said. “Undefeated through twenty-five professional bouts. We all know Stecher was on the verge of agreeing to meet him in the ring when Taft was jailed. We believe this gives us cause to request a match with Lesko.”

Stettler held a hand up, pleading for calm. “As you know,” he said, “I was once of a similar mind as Stan. I don't relish the idea of going down in history as the first man to give a shot at the world's heavyweight wrestling title to a black.”

“Billy's been talking to Jack Kearns about a fight with Dempsey,” Lesko said.

This time Pepper laughed out loud. “Dempsey?” he said. “As in Jack?”

“We've been back and forth in the press,” Stettler said. “I've offered to put up five thousand dollars of my own cash if Kearns will match it and agree to a mixed-rules fight. Dempsey doesn't even have to win to collect, he just has to last more than forty minutes in the ring with Stan.”

“I'd like to lick that cornpone cocksucker,” Lesko said. “The way he runs his yap.”

His voice was bland Nebraska farm boy, deep and steady. Quiet,
Pepper noted. The best wrestler in the world was quiet. Some said Lesko was a better mat man than even Gotch. Though he was retired by the time Lesko won the title, there had been fleeting hopes for a bout between the two champions in 1916, before Gotch broke his ankle training for a comeback. A year later he was dead from blood poisoning.

“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?”