Champion of the World (43 page)

A wadded-up program bounced across the canvas and disappeared underneath the ropes on the far side of the ring. The crowd wanted action and now even the referee was getting anxious, clapping his hands together and reminding them they weren't there for a footrace.

Pepper could see the fatigue building in Lesko's posture. He was starting to get sloppy with his attacks, his normally fearsome blend of power and technique deserting him as the frustration continued to mount. He began telegraphing his shots, reaching high with his right hand before stepping in to go low on the left side. Each time, he came up empty as Pepper slunk out of the way. The muscles in Lesko's jaw fluttered as he tried to walk Pepper into a corner, fidgeting, his fingers twiddling like a man who couldn't figure out the final answer to his morning crossword.

For nearly twenty more minutes Pepper was a ghost floating just out of the champion's reach. When Lesko grabbed for him, he slapped his hands away. When he lunged, Pepper slid to one side, dancing and circling, smiling all the while. He wouldn't be suckered in and he wouldn't be trapped, just moving, evading and waiting, waiting, waiting. Eventually the feeling in his leg began to return. The tingling in his toes faded and he felt whole again, the nerves no longer on fire, his bones no longer numb and clumsy.

When Lesko's frustration finally got the better of him, Pepper saw it first in his eyes. The champion's last desperate dive at his legs came from too far away, nearly the opposite side of the ring. It was slow and careless and he circled deftly away from it. As Lesko spun to follow, Pepper finally darted in, scooping up one of the big man's legs at the knee. Lesko grunted in surprise. The ankle that now bore his weight was the one Pepper had stomped on during the first fall, and it buckled under the strain. Lesko crashed to the canvas in a heap, landing hard on one hip.

The impact shook the ring, but it was lost in an explosion of
cheers. Lesko was not used to fighting from his back, and Pepper could feel the panic in him as soon as he hit the mat. He kicked and thrashed, trying to scramble free, but Pepper would not let him go. With Lesko up on his hip to avoid a pin, he put his knee into the champion's ribs and leaned with all his weight. Lesko grimaced, and as he did Pepper seized him by the wrist and rolled for a straight armlock. Rearing back with the full power of his torso, he felt Lesko's elbow stretch and then lock as it began to bend the wrong way.

Pepper thought Lesko would concede the fall, but somehow the champion struggled to his feet. He stood tall and dropped Pepper headfirst onto the canvas, the impact rattling his vision once, then twice. Still he held tight to the arm, each impact only strengthening the lock. He pulled harder, popping his hips forward and arching his back as a gasp and a shudder escaped Lesko's lips. Something cracked in his arm, the sound like a piece of driftwood breaking over someone's knee, and the champion sank to the mat, swatting the canvas with his free hand to concede the fall.

The referee separated them and Lesko sat back on his heels, his right arm folded protectively across his belly. His look was a mixture of pain, resignation and anger. Pepper stood over him and, putting one foot on Lesko's shoulder, toppled him backward onto his ass. The crowd roared, and as Pepper walked back to his corner, he raised his arms, the first man ever to win a concession from Stanislaw “Strangler” Lesko.

T
he referee asked Lesko if he wanted an intermission before the final fall, but the champion shook his head. Getting his hands on Pepper did not seem to be the kind of pleasure he was willing to put off another fifteen minutes. Pepper bent at the waist and stretched, every joint in his body hurting now, his muscles aching
the way they did just before they started to cramp on him. Just a little bit further, he told himself, almost there.

He expected a stern lecture from the referee before the final restart, but instead the man just stood in the center of the ring and looked at him with flat, dispassionate eyes.

“Fillipelli's is a fine place for small-timers,” Pepper shouted at him. “But you ought to try the Broken Spoke on the South Side. Really, you'll thank me for it.”

The ref just shook his head in wonder. Pepper glanced across the ring at Lesko, who was bouncing and sucking in big breaths. He winked, and when Lesko grinned back, there were flecks of blood on his teeth.

A moment later they were off.

They faced off in the middle of the ring with five feet between them, Lesko looking more cautious this time. The champion circled left and so did Pepper, keeping his distance. Slowly, Lesko began trying to walk him down, cutting off the ring, taking little bites out of the space between them with every pass. But he was exhausted now, his arm certainly injured, and his feet dragging on the canvas with each step, as if there were cinder blocks tied to his boots. For the first few minutes Pepper managed to escape his grasp, edging away each time it looked like the champion had him trapped. The crowd was openly jeering both of them now, and Pepper could tell it bothered Lesko. His face betrayed nothing, his jaw still set in the same hard line as when they'd started, but his eyes were clouded with frustration and fatigue. Once Lesko had decided Pepper wasn't going to attack—that he was just going to stall and continue to run until the referee declared a draw—his hands dropped a bit and his shoulders went slack.

As he did, Pepper saw a drop of sweat roll out of Lesko's hairline and across his forehead. An inch at a time, it ran the length of his nose and settled at the tip, and when the champion reached to brush it away, Pepper finally charged him. He shot in on a tackle, quick
and perfect, slipping under Lesko's defenses and locking his hands around his hips. Lesko grunted in surprise and he tried to sprawl out, but Pepper had him. As he planted his weight and tried to hoist Lesko off his feet, something snapped in his leg again. The side of his body went numb from armpit to ankle and his momentum faltered. Lesko powered out of his grip and, putting a hand on the back of Pepper's neck, drove him face-first into the canvas.

Before Pepper could get off his hands and knees, Lesko circled behind him and climbed on his back, looping his legs around him like a baby monkey riding its mother. The crowd gasped. This was not a position you came back from, especially against Lesko, who had earned his nickname with one of the deadliest choke attacks in wrestling history. As Lesko wrapped a thick arm across his face, Pepper tucked his chin into his chest, hiding his neck and taking the full force of the champion's squeeze on his jaw.

It fucking hurt.

“You wanted it this way,” Lesko whispered to him, his breath hot in Pepper's ear. “Just remember that.”

Even though he'd done some damage to Lesko with the armlock during the second fall, it still felt like someone was trying to fold a steel bar across his face. It was not unheard-of for Lesko to break a man's jaw if he couldn't get the choke sunk in around the throat, and Pepper hoped the champion didn't have that kind of strength left. The referee hovered over them, hands at his waist, ready to dive in and separate them as soon as Pepper tapped the mat to concede.

The whole arena seemed to be thinking the same thought: It wouldn't be long now.

Lesko put his meaty left hand across Pepper's forehead and yanked his head back, trying to gain the few inches he needed to sink the chokehold under his chin. There was no real use fighting it, but Pepper held out as long as he could before his head rocked back, his jaw popped up and Lesko's grip slid into place. He could feel the
heaving of the champion's chest against his back as he put everything he had into the squeeze. The crowd was on its feet again, cheering for the climax of the match. From his position facedown on the mat, Pepper could see men in the front row gathering up their hats, tucking them under their arms and clapping expectantly while Lesko cinched the hold tighter and tighter.

The cheering reached its crescendo and plateaued. The moment stretched, and stretched.

And stretched.

Lesko's victory was at hand, but still it didn't come, and as the crowd waited, the applause wavered and the cheering died away. Suddenly it got very quiet. The referee took a step forward as if to call a halt to the match, but Pepper stopped him in his tracks with an outstretched hand. Slowly he raised his index finger, the referee regarding it as if it might be a poisonous snake. The finger waggled back and forth reproachfully, and some in the crowd began to laugh.

Lesko struggled to redouble his grip, and Pepper felt the pressure wall up across his throat. Each time Lesko locked the hold in tight, he felt himself start to fade, his vision collapsing in on itself, and he shifted his weight just a bit to either side. He moved into the pressure of Lesko's grip, finding just enough space to breathe and to keep the blood trickling into his brain. When the champion corrected his grip, Pepper moved with him.

Lesko's breathing grew ragged in his ear and the referee took another cautious step forward. Again Pepper stopped him with a raised finger, this time seeing the ref's eyes go wide when he noticed that Pepper was smiling at him.

The two wrestlers stayed like that for what felt like a very long time, Lesko putting everything he had into the chokehold and Pepper holding his hand out to let everyone know he was not troubled by it at all. Finally, the champion's grip began to weaken. It started with a barely perceptible quiver in the arm across his throat. The quiver
slowly became a shake, and as Lesko struggled to retain the grip, Pepper felt his own breathing start to get easier. The hand Lesko still had clamped across his forehead was damp with sweat and he knew the grip was becoming pliable.

He was just waiting for his moment now. The instant Lesko's grip broke, Pepper would spin into him. He would step out of the champion's grapevine and get to the side for a pinning combination. Lesko would be too tired to stop him, his arms useless and full of blood from trying to apply the choke. The referee would count him out and Pepper would become the world's heavyweight champion. He would stand in the ring while the referee raised his hand, Lesko hanging his head, barely even able to stay on his feet. He would take the title and then Stettler, Fritz and O'Shea would be powerless over him. If they wanted a rematch, he would make them beg for it, and he would show up in Philadelphia and whip Lesko again.

The sensation of victory was already rising inside him as he made to spring out of the champion's grasp. The years were falling away: the time he'd spent blackballed from the business, the nights doing the hangman's drop, their time in Montana—it was all worth it now. He wanted to see Moira's face when he came backstage with the heavyweight title. Whatever distance had developed between them would be gone. They could start anew, leaving everything behind them. They would have money; they could go anywhere and do anything. The world would be wide-open to them. They would have everything they wanted and nothing they didn't.

This is what he was thinking when Lesko's forearm closed again around his throat. The champion's last gasp, some final energy reserve he'd found deep inside himself. It felt more powerful than before, but Pepper knew what to do. He turned into the grip, just as he'd done each time leading up to this moment. Lifting his arm again to tell the referee he was okay. He was fine.

He would survive this.

H
e was quiet for a long time after he woke up. He didn't ask what happened or touch the fresh bruising around his neck. It made Moira sad and tired to look at it, that part of his body that always seemed to be sore or raw, like it might never heal. When he saw the lights of the dressing room and the doctor leaning over him, he knew. Blinking, he sat up, legs hanging over the side of the rubdown table. She got out of her chair and stood by him, putting her hand on his knee.

“I lost,” he said.

“You did,” she said, just glad to see him moving. Glad to hear him speak.

They'd brought him in on a stretcher, four orderlies in white smocks who'd hoisted him up onto the rubdown table and left once the doctor was there, checking to make sure his breathing and heart rate were normal. It had taken the referee a few moments longer than it should have to realize he was out. Lesko had held the choke too long and Pepper had been unconscious for almost five minutes.

After the doctor was gone, a warm teardrop landed on her knuckle and beaded there. He made no sound as he wept. His shoulders didn't shake. He didn't lurch and snort trying to catch his breath. There was no bubbling mucus, or splotchy red spots on his cheeks. He just sat
there watching her hand on his knee, looking perfectly normal, looking like her husband, with tears falling from his eyes. She'd seen a lot of wrestlers break down in backstage areas, dressing rooms and rings in front of a thousand people. They all cried when it was over and they'd lost. Every one of them. All of them except Pepper.

When proud, tough men suffered a loss in life, what they needed most was stillness. This she knew well. It was like a death. They needed to sit alone, not talking, until the numb pain faded and they made peace with whatever dark knowledge had been passed to them. They needed to brood, to wallow in it, until their wounds were licked clean and their strength came back. Then, and only after an appropriate while, if they couldn't budge themselves, you had to give them a kick in the ass.

So, even though there were countless things she wanted to ask him—as much about the future as the past—she sat quietly with him and patted his knee as the clock ground and clicked on the wall behind them. After a bit he reached up and touched the side of his head, saying that it ached. He'd mostly got himself together by the time Stettler and Fritz let themselves into the dressing room. Moira cursed herself for not locking the door after the doctor left.

“You had to be the big man,” Stettler said. “Well, this is where it gets you.”

Pepper didn't respond, which scared her far more than the tears.

“Lesko asked us to pass along his regards,” Fritz said. “Said you almost had him out there.”

Pepper snuck his head up, a little look around. “He didn't come himself,” he said finally.

“Well,” Fritz said, “he's left already. Places to go and all that.”

“We want you out of the Plaza by eleven a.m. tomorrow,” Stettler said. “We're not paying for you to spend another night there.”

Moira took her hand from Pepper's knee. “We'll stay on as long as we like and you'll foot the bill,” she said. “He needs to recuperate.”

“Another thing you should've thought about,” Stettler said, “before you kicked dirt in our eyes.”

Moira slapped him across the face. Stettler's head jerked to one side and his raven's hair fluttered into a mess of bent wire. Before she could draw her hand away, he caught her arm in his fist.

“This man just took a fall from Strangler Lesko,” she said, putting her face as close to Stettler as she dared. “He just gave you the match people will be talking about for the next year. He almost won the world's heavyweight title from a man who outweighed him by more than a hundred pounds. Putting him up in a hotel until he feels well enough to travel would be the only halfway human thing to do.”

“He looks fine to me,” Stettler said, glancing at Pepper, who'd gotten up from his spot on the rubdown table and was being held back by one of Fritz's giant paws.

Stettler was mashing the bones of Moira's wrist and Fritz said, “Please,” standing in the middle of the room a like traffic cop. “It's all done now. There's no sense in any of this.”

The door opened again and Dion O'Shea stuck his face inside. He looked slightly alarmed at what he saw, but not as alarmed as Stettler, who dropped Moira's wrist and backed away. O'Shea came in accompanied by the big, dangerous-looking man called Francis.

“We were just hashing out some final details,” said Stettler, rearranging the cut of his suit jacket.

“Yes,” said O'Shea. “I'm sure that's all it was.”

Pepper still hadn't said a word—was just standing on the other side of the dressing room, looking exhausted, but like he was trying his best to keep up with what was going on. When O'Shea saw him, he pushed past the rest to shake his hand, lustily pumping his arm as he grinned and slapped him on the back.

“Well met,” O'Shea said. “Just extraordinary. I thought you were going to give me a heart attack out there.”

“Yeah?” Pepper said.

O'Shea was beaming, seemingly oblivious that anything could be the matter. “I mean it,” he said. “One of the best scientific wrestling matches I've ever been privileged to see.”

Pepper nodded, but Moira could see his mind working back over the match, his face falling as he remembered each failure all over again. She wanted to go to him but felt trapped on the other side of the room by Stettler and Fritz. Perhaps the men were feeling it, too, after O'Shea's sudden arrival.

“Dion,” Fritz said. “What are you doing here? We thought you'd gone back to the hotel.”

Annoyance flashed on O'Shea's face, a grimness returning to him as if the work bell had just called him back to the real world. “You two fellows can leave now,” he said. “But hold the car for me. I'll get a ride back with you, if that's quite all right.”

Like cattle being urged through a chute, Fritz and Stettler pawed around a moment before Francis pushed the door open and ushered them into the hall. Moira felt cheered to see them go but still dejected over the things she might never get to say to Stettler. She also wondered if she owed Fritz an apology. Even though he showed up out of the blue to sucker them into this mess, she knew she'd misjudged him during the last several years. She blamed him for things that were not his fault. When the door swung closed she noticed for the first time that Francis was carrying a small satchel in one hand. The sight of it, swinging low and close to his body like something he didn't want people to see, chased away thoughts of anything else.

The satchel went on the seat of a chair by the door after O'Shea took it from Francis's hand. He fumbled with it for a moment, trying to get the latch to spring, and then stepped back to let Moira peer inside. Her knees and back tightened when she saw the low stacks of cash.

“You were right,” he said. He didn't look happy about it. “We've had a near miss thanks to you.”

“I don't understand,” Pepper said. He'd come over to huddle with them around the bag of money. “What is this?”

“It's twenty thousand dollars,” O'Shea said. “Kind of steep for reward money, if you ask me, but I'll share the loss with Mr. Mundt.” He looked at Francis. “Remind me to tell him about that.”

“And Mr. Eddy?” she said, keeping herself steady.

O'Shea grimaced. “I'd known that guy my whole life,” he said. “Things hadn't been right between us for a while. I guess he turned out to be the jealous type. Still, I didn't think he'd take it this far.”

“What are you talking about?” Pepper said. He was starting to look manic, wild.

“I have to run,” O'Shea said. “But I'm sure you'll work it out between the two of you.”

“Wait,” she said. “Why are you doing this?”

O'Shea shrugged at her, spreading his hands as if apologizing. “Like you said,” he said. “We made a deal, and I like to think I honor my commitments.”

He was an ugly man, sweaty and weirdly complected, in a way that reminded her of some shiny upholstery. He shook Pepper's hand again, telling him what a fine match it had been. One of the greats, he said. Pepper just stood there staring at the bag of money, nodding and thanking him very much.

When it was just the two of them again, of course he wouldn't let up until she told him the whole story. He leaned back against the rubdown table while she talked, a look of alarm spreading across his face. When she was finished they both gazed at the floor a moment before Pepper whooped and grabbed her up in a hug. He lifted her off her feet and spun around once before setting her down, as if remembering how much pain he was in. But he was smiling. The news had given him a burst of energy and she hoped it held out for a while.

“Jesus, Moira,” he said. “That was really stupid, putting in with O'Shea like that. Brave as hell, but stupid.”

She kissed him lightly on the cheek. “I guess I'll take that as a compliment,” she said.

W
hile he went to take his shower, she loaded half the money into his small travel bag and let herself out into the bowels of Madison Square Garden. She found Carol Jean in another cramped dressing room not far away, alone and still sitting there after most of the others had left.

“Can I help you?” Carol Jean said, in a way that told Moira she still thought she'd won.

She was all in black again, a dress just slightly too revealing for a grieving widow. Her arms came up instinctively as Moira stepped inside and thrust the bag at her, eyes going as big and wide as fried eggs when she saw the bundles of cash inside. She blinked, her indignation losing a lot of its steam. She said, “What's this?”

“Ten thousand dollars,” Moira said. “God knows you earned it. It might not last you forever, but it's enough for a running start.”

“What?” Carol Jean said, as if she had suggested they go into business together on a candy store. “No. No, I can't accept this.”

Moira told her she wouldn't try to understand what she was going through. She hadn't known Mr. Taft for very long before he died, but she thought he was a decent man and knew he would want her to have that money. Carol Jean held the bag against her chest, suddenly looking every bit the old spinster. Her face fell as Moira talked, her eyes ticking up to the clock as if realizing she'd been had. But by the time Moira finished explaining it, a new stubbornness was fixed there.

“I'm waiting for Mr. Markham,” she said. “He promised me a lift back to the hotel.”

“I think most everyone has already gone,” Moira said, trying to keep her voice light. “We're the last ones left. The stragglers.”

“I'm sure that's not true,” Carol Jean said. “There's still so much to figure out. With the lawyers and the like.”

Her voice was big and empty in the hard little room. It was difficult to know if she believed what she was saying.

“Well, either way,” Moira said, “I hope that money helps to get you wherever you're going.”

“What's left for me anywhere, I wonder?” Carol Jean said, looking at her with those impossible green eyes.

Moira didn't know what to say to that. Carol Jean was so young to have seen so much sadness, but seemed somehow too old to start over again. She didn't have a home to go to, or any other place that might offer her anything. Moira wished she could tell her to just run. To get out of this place, set herself up in a new town, and not tell a soul where she was. If she couldn't bring herself to pretend none of this had happened, at least she could put as much distance as possible between herself and people like Boyd Markham.

“I wish you'd come back to the hotel with us,” she said. “At least for tonight. If we all shared a cab we could leave one heck of a tip.”

“Thank you, no,” Carol Jean said. “I think I'll sit here a while longer. I'm sure Mr. Markham will be along. He promised me a lift.”