He turned to laugh at Arum again, and right then I saw my chance. I stood up in a sort of linebacker's crouch and hooked him hard in the ribs. He fell back on the hot rocks and I hooked him again.
"O my God!" Arum shrieked. "I heard something break!"
Leon looked up from where he was sitting on the duck-board floor, his face warped with pain. "Well," he said slowly, "now we know you ain't deaf, Bob." He was leaning back on both hands, wincing with every breath as he slowly raised his eyes to glare at me.
"Real smart friends you got, Arum," he whispered, "but this one's mine, now." He winced again; every breath was painful and he spoke very slowly. "Call my brother Michael," he said to Arum. "Tell him to fix a hook on this honky bastard's head and hang him up alongside the big bag, for when I get well."
Arum was kneeling beside him now, gently probing his rib cage. . . And it was just about then I felt myself waking up; but instead of lying down in a bed, I suddenly realized that something ugly had happened. My first thought was that I'd passed out from the heat of the sauna: indeed, a quick trip to the Near Room and some dim memory of violence, but only as part of a dream. . .
Or. . . well. . . maybe not. As my head began to clear and Arum's face came into focus -- his beady eyes, his trembling hands, the sweat squirting out of his pores -- I realized that I was not lying down or coming out of a faint, but standing naked in the middle of a hot wooden cell and staring down like a zombie at -- ye gods! -- it was Leon Spinks!
And Bob Arum, his eyes bulged out like a frog's, was massaging Leon's chest. I stared for a moment, then recoiled with shock. . . No, I thought, this can't be happening!
But it was. I was wide-awake now, and I knew this hideous thing was actually happening, right in front of my eyes. Arum was moaning and trembling, while his hands stroked the challenger's chest. Leon was leaning back with his eyes closed, his teeth clenched, and his whole body stiff as a corpse.
Neither one of them seemed to notice my recovery -- from what was later diagnosed, by the nervous hotel doctor, as nothing more than a mild Acid Flashback. . . But I didn't learn that until later.
High Risk on the Low Road, New Boy on Queer Street. . . Five Million Dollars an Hour, Five Miles to the Terminal Hotel. . . The Devil and Pat Patterson. . . No Nigger Ever Called Me Hippie. . .
THE NEAR ROOM
When he got in trouble in the ring, Ali imagined a door swung open and inside he could see neon, orange and green lights blinking, and bats blowing trumpets and alligators playing trombones, and he could hear snakes screaming. Weird masks and actors' clothes hung on the wall, and if he stepped across the sill and reached for them, he knew that he was committing himself to destruction.
-- George Plimpton, Shadow Box
It was almost midnight when Pat Patterson got off the elevator and headed down the corridor toward 905, his room right next door to The Champ's. They had flown in from Chicago a few hours earlier and Muhammad had said he was tired and felt like sleeping. No midnight strolls down the block to the Plaza fountain, he promised, no wandering around the hotel or causing a scene in the lobby.
Beautiful, thought Patterson. No worries tonight. With Muhammad in bed and Veronica there to watch over him, Pat felt things were under control and he might even have time for a bit of refreshment downstairs, and then get a decent night's sleep for himself. The only conceivable problem was the volatile presence of Bundini and a friend, who had dropped by around ten for a chat with The Champ about his run for the Triple Crown. The family had been in a state of collective shock for two weeks or so after Vegas, but now it was the first week in March and they were eager to get the big engine cranked up for the return bout with Spinks in September. No contracts had been signed yet, and every sports-writer in New York seemed to be on the take from either Ken Norton or Don King or both. . . But none of that mattered, said Ali, because he and Leon had already agreed on the rematch, and by the end of this year he would be the first man in history to win the Heavyweight Championship of the World THREE TIMES.
Patterson had left them whooping and laughing at each other, but only after securing a promise from Hal Conrad that he and Bundini leave early and let The Champ sleep. They were scheduled to tape a show with Dick Cavett the next day, then drive for three or four hours up into the mountains of eastern Pennsylvania to Ali's custom-built training camp at Deer Lake. Kilroy was getting the place ready for what Patterson and all the rest of The Family understood was going to be some very serious use. Ali had announced almost immediately after losing to Spinks in Vegas any talk of his "retiring from the ring was nonsense," and that soon he'd begin training for his rematch with Leon.
So the fat was in the fire: a second loss to Spinks would be even worse than the first -- the end of the line for Ali, The Family, and in fact the whole Ali industry. No more paydays, no more limousines, no more suites and crab cocktails from room service in the world's most expensive hotels. For Pat Patterson and a lot of other people, another defeat by Spinks would mean the end of a whole way of life. . . And, worse yet, the first wave of public reaction to Ali's "comeback" announcement had been anything but reassuring. An otherwise sympathetic story in the Los Angeles Times described the almost universal reaction of the sporting press:
"There were smiles and a shaking of hands all around when the thirty-six-year-old ex-champion said after the fight last Wednesday night: 'I'll be back. I'll be the first man to win the heavyweight title three times.' But no one laughed out loud."
A touch of this doomsday thinking had even showed up in The Family. Dr. Ferdie Pacheco, who had been in The Champ's corner for every fight since he first won the title from Liston -- except the last one -- had gone on the Tom Snyder show and said that Muhammad was finished as a fighter, that he was a shadow of his former self, and that he (Pacheco) had done everything but beg Ali to retire even before the Spinks fight.
Pacheco had already been expelled from The Family for this heresy, but it had planted a seed of doubt that was hard to ignore. "The Doc" was no quack and he was also a personal friend; did he know something the others didn't? Was it even possible that The Champ was "washed up"? There was no way to think that by looking at him, or listening to him either. He looked sharp, talked sharp, and there was a calmness, a kind of muted intensity, in his confidence that made it sound almost understated.
Pat Patterson believed -- or if he didn't, there was no way that even The Champ could guess it. The loyalty of those close to Muhammad Ali is so profound that it sometimes clouds their own vision. . . But Leon Spinks had swept those clouds away, and now it was time to get serious. No more show business, no more clowning. Now they had come to the crunch.
Pat Patterson had tried not to brood on these things, but every newspaper rack he'd come close to in Chicago, New York or anywhere else seemed to echo the baying of hounds on a blood scent. Every media voice in the country was poised for ultimate revenge on this Uppity Nigger who had laughed in their faces for so long that a whole generation of sportswriters had grown up in the shadow of a mocking dancing presence that most of them had never half-understood until now, when it seemed almost gone.
Even the rematch with Spinks was bogged down in the arcane politics of big-money boxing -- and Pat Patterson, like all the others who had geared their lives to the fortunes of Muhammad Ali, understood that the rematch would have to be soon. Very soon. And The Champ would have to be ready this time -- as he had not been ready in Vegas. There was no avoiding the memory of Sonny Liston's grim fate, after losing again to Ali in a fight that convinced even the "experts."
But Muhammad Ali was no Liston. There was magic in his head, as well as his fists and his feet -- but time was not on his side, this time, and the only thing more important than slashing the Gordian Knot of boxing-industry politics that was already menacing the reality of a quick rematch with Spinks was the absolute necessity of making sure that The Champ would take this next fight as seriously as it was clearly going to be. A whole industry would
be up for grabs -- not to mention the fate of The Family -- and the bizarre scenes of chaos and wild scrambling for position that had followed Spinks' first shocking upset would not be repeated if Ali lost the rematch.
Nobody was ready for Spinks' stunning victory in Vegas, but every power freak and leverage-monger with any real-life connection to boxing would be ready to go either way on this next one. There would be no more of this low-rent political bullshit about "recognition" by the World Boxing Council (WBC) or the World Boxing Association (WBA) if Ali lost the rematch with Leon -- and no more big-money fights for Muhammad Ali, either. They would all be pushed over the brink that was already just a few steps in front of them -- and no "comeback" would be likely, or even possible.
These things were among the dark shadows that Pat Patterson would rather not have been thinking about on that night in Manhattan as he walked down the corridor to his room in the Park Lane Hotel. The Champ had already convinced him that he would indeed be the first man in history to win the first Triple Crown in the history of heavyweight boxing -- and Pat Patterson was far from alone in his conviction that Leon Spinks would be easy prey, next time, for a Muhammad Ali in top condition both mentally and physically. Spinks was vulnerable: the same crazy/mean style that made him dangerous also made him easy to hit. His hands were surprisingly fast, but his feet were as slow as Joe Frazier's and it was only the crafty coaching of his trainer, the ancient Sam Solomon, that had given him the early five-round edge in Las Vegas that Ali had refused to understand until he was so far behind that his only hope was a blazing last-minute assault and a knockout or at least a few knockdowns that he was too tired, in the end, to deliver.
Leon was dead on his feet in that savage fifteenth round -- but so was Muhammad Ali, and that's why Spinks won the fight. . .
Yes. . . but that is no special secret and there will be plenty of time to deal with those questions of ego and strategy later on in this saga, if in fact we ever get there. The sun is up, the peacocks are screaming with lust, and this story is so far off the game plan that no hope of salvage exists at this time -- or at least nothing less than a sweeping, all-points injunction by Judge Crater, who maintains an unlisted number so private that not even Bob Arum can reach him on short notice.
So we are left with the unhurried vision of Pat Patterson finally reaching the door of his room, number 905 in the Park Lane Hotel in Manhattan -- and just as he pulls the room key out of his pocket on the way to a good night's sleep, his body goes suddenly stiff as he picks up the sound of raucous laughter and strange voices in room number 904.
Weird sounds from The Champ's suite. . . Impossible, but Pat Patterson knows he's stone sober and nowhere near deaf, so he drops his key back in his pocket and moves one step down the hallway, listening carefully now to these sounds he hopes are not really there. . . Hallucinations, bad nerves, almost anything but the sound of a totally unknown voice -- and the voice of a "white devil," no doubt about that -- from the room where Ali and Veronica are supposed to be sleeping peacefully. Bundini and Conrad had both promised to be gone at least an hour ago. . . But, no! Not this: not Bundini and Conrad and the voice of some stranger, too; along with the unmistakable sound of laughter from both The Champ and his wife. . . Not now, just when things were getting close to intolerably serious.
What was the meaing?
Pat Patterson knew what he had to do: he planted both feet in the rug in front of 904 and knocked. Whatever was going on would have to be cut short at once, and it was his job to do the cutting -- even if he had to get rude with Bundini and Conrad.
Well. . . this next scene is so strange that not even the people who were part of it can recount exactly what happened. . . but it went more or less like this: Bundini and I had just emerged from a strategy conference in the bathroom when we heard the sudden sound of knocking on the door. Bundini waved us all into silence as Conrad slouched nervously against the wall below the big window that looked out on the snow-covered wasteland of Central Park; Veronica was sitting fully clothed on the king-size bed right next to Ali, who was stretched out and relaxed with the covers pulled up to his waist, wearing nothing at all except. . . Well, let's take it again from Pat Patterson's view from the doorway, when Bundini answered his knock:
The first thing he saw when the door opened was a white stranger with a can of beer in one hand and a lit cigarette in the other, sitting cross-legged on the bureau that faced The Champ's bed -- a bad omen for sure and a thing to be dealt with at once at this ominous point in time; but the next thing Pat Patterson saw turned his face into spastic wax and caused his body to leap straight back toward the doorway like he'd just been struck by lightning.
His professional bodyguard's eyes had fixed on me just long enough to be sure I was passive and with both hands harmlessly occupied for at least the few seconds it would take him to sweep the rest of the room and see what was wrong with his Five-Million-Dollars-an-hour responsibility. . . and I could tell by the way he moved into the room and the look on his face that I was suddenly back at that point where any movement at all or even the blink of an eye could change my life forever. But I also knew what was coming and I recall a split second of real fear as Pat Patterson's drop-forged glance swept past me and over to the bed to Veronica and the inert lump that lay under the sheets right beside her.
For an instant that frightened us all, the room was electric with absolute silence -- and then the bed seemed to literally explode as the sheets leaped away and a huge body with the hairy red face of the Devil himself leaped up like some jack-in-the-box out of hell and uttered a wild cry that jolted us all and sent such an obvious shock through Pat Patterson that he leaped backward and shot out both elbows like Kareem coming down with a rebound. . .
Rolling Stone, # 264, May 4, 1978
Last Tango in Vegas:
Fear and Loathing in the Far Room
PART II
Wild Ravings of an Autograph Hound. . . A Threat of Public Madness. . . the Pantyhose Press Conference
I waited until I was sure the Muhammad Ali party was well off the plane and up the ramp before I finally stood and moved up the aisle, fixing the stewardess at the door with a blind stare from behind two mirror lenses so dark that I could barely see to walk -- but not so dark that I failed to notice a touch of mockery in her smile as I nodded and stepped past her. "Goodbye, sir," she chirped. "I hope you got an interesting story."
You nasty little bitch! I hope your next flight crashes in a cannibal country. . . But I kept this thought to myself as I laughed bitterly and stomped up the empty tunnel to a bank of pay phones, in the concourse. It was New York's La Guardia airport, around eight-thirty on a warm Sunday night in the first week of March, and I had just flown in from Chicago -- supposedly "with the Muhammad Ali party." But things had not worked out that way and my temper was hovering dangerously on the far edge of control as I listened to the sound of nobody answering the phone in Hal Conrad's West Side apartment. . . That swine! That treacherous lying bastard!
We were almost to the ten-ring limit, that point where I knew I'd start pounding on things unless I hung up quickly before we got to eleven. . . when suddenly a voice sounding almost as angry as I felt came booming over the line. "Yeah, yeah, what is it?" Conrad snapped. "I'm in a hell of a hurry. Jesus! I was just about into the elevator when I had to come back and answer this goddamn --"
"YOU CRAZY BASTARD!" I screamed, cutting into his gravelly mumbling as I slammed my hand down on the tin counter and saw a woman using the phone next to me jump like a rat had just run up her leg.
"It's me, Harold!" I shouted. "I'm out here at La Guardia and my whole story's fucked and just as soon as I find all my baggage I'm going to get a cab and track you down and slit your goddamn throat!"
"Wait a minute!" he said. "What the hell is wrong? Where's Ali? Not with you?"
"Are you kidding?" I snarled. "That crazy bastard didn't even know who I was when I met him Chicago. I made a GODDAMN FOOL OF MYSELF, Ha
rold! He looked at me like I was some kind of autograph hound!"
"No!" said Conrad. "I told him all about you -- that you were a good friend of mine and you'd be on the flight with him from Chicago. He was expecting you."
"Bullshit!" I yelled. "You told me he'd be traveling alone, too. . . So I stayed up all night and busted my ass to get a first-class seat on that Continental flight that I knew he'd be catching at O'Hare; then I got everything arranged with the flight crew between Denver and Chicago, making sure they blocked off the first two seats so we could sit together. . . Jesus, Harold," I muttered, suddenly feeling very tired, "what kind of sick instinct would cause you to do a thing like this to me?"
"Where the hell is Ali?" Conrad shouted, ignoring my question. "I sent a car out to pick you up, both of you!"
"You mean all of us," I said. "His wife was with him, along with Pat Patterson and maybe a few others -- I couldn't tell, but it wouldn't have made any difference; they all looked at me like I was weird; some kind of psycho trying to muscle into the act, babbling about sitting in Veronica's seat. . ."
"That's impossible," Conrad snapped. "He knew --"
"Well, I guess he forgot!" I shouted, feeling my temper roving out on the edge again. "Are we talking about brain damage, Harold? Are you saying he has no memory?"
He hesitated just long enough to let me smile for the first time all day. "This could be an ugly story, Harold," I said. "Ali is so punch-drunk that his memory's all scrambled? Maybe they should lift his license, eh? 'Yeah, let's croak all this talk about comebacks, Dumbo. Your memory's fucked, you're on queer street -- and by the way, Champ, what are your job prospects?'"
"You son of a bitch," Conrad muttered. "Okay. To hell with all this bullshit. Just get a cab and meet us at the Plaza. I should have been there a half-hour ago."