"Do you really need to?"

"No. I guess not."

"You know as well as I do the kind of s.h.i.t that's been going down."

Weaver nodded and drew another lungful of smoke.

"You saw what they did to Monk."

Cleese looked down at his hands as if there was a stain there that no amount of washing could remove. Lady Macbeth had nothing on him.

"I did, indeed."

"And you approve?"

Weaver glared at Cleese for a moment before realizing that the question came more out of grief than anger.

"With all due respect, Son... f.u.c.k you."

"You're right. I'm sorry... That was out of line."

"I approve not one f.u.c.king bit," Weaver b.u.mped his cigar's ash against the b.u.mper of the truck. The smoldering, grey cylinder fell to the ground and shattered into a fine dust. "He was my friend too, remember?"

"Then, you shouldn't have to ask why I'm leaving this f.u.c.kin' place," the words caught like a fishhook in Cleese's throat.

"Look, Son. I hate these f.u.c.kers as much as you do for what they did to Monk. They used him and they spit him out," he said. His voice fragmented with emotion. "And I don't think for a second that they wouldn't do the same to you. Or to me, for that matter."

Cleese looked his friend over, knowing down deep in his soul that he was right. Nothing he was being told was anything he hadn't already considered. It was just disheartening to hear his thoughts coming from someone else's mouth. Since this was undoubtedly the last time he'd see Weaver, he let the man talk. As he listened, he made sure to keep his eyes reflexively scanning the area for anyone who might see them talking and report them.

"That all said though," Weaver continued, "no one knew the risks better than Monk. He'd been at this a long f.u.c.kin' time. As I know you are well aware. Monk knew the kind of people running this place. He knew the cut of their jib, what was important to them. It's all a part of what we signed on for."

"Maybe it's what you signed on for."

"Don't fool yourself, kid. The signs were there all along. Don't go and get indignant now just because you chose to ignore them."

Cleese stared at his friend, but remained silent. He was right, of course. He hadn't exactly been on vacation when Lenik and Cartwright died. They'd been carted off like spent resources and forgotten. Michaels had received even less. While there was a part of him that knew he was expendable, his ego wouldn't allow him to truly believe it. It had taken the deaths of two of the most important people in his life to drive the point home.

"And that's why, in the end, he gave himself up. It was his way of cheating the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds out of their precious ratings points. It was his way of saying one last 'f.u.c.k You' sent special delivery from one James Thelonius Montgomery."

"Well, f.u.c.k it. I'm not playin' no more." Cleese ran a hand through his hair and looked away. "I'm out."

Weaver shot a quick glance at Cleese's bag out of the corner of his eye. The handle of a j.a.panese katana stuck out of it like a bamboo shoot.

"I see you have Chikara's sword," Weaver said sadly.

Cleese looked down at the gold and sharkskin tsuka sticking out of his duffel.

"I do. I wasn't about to let those f.u.c.kers get their filthy hands on it," responded Cleese. His gaze took on a lonely, far-off aspect. "It was special to her."

"As were you."

Cleese looked up at his friend for a long time, but said nothing. The expression on his face just about broke Weaver's heart.

"I know," Cleese whispered.

"Where will you go?" asked Weaver finally.

Cleese stared at him blankly. He c.o.c.ked an eyebrow and softly said, "Somewhere... Somewhere over the rainbow, I guess."

"Ok...ok." Weaver said chuckling, "Don't need to tell me. I understand, but I'll have to say something about all of this, you know. You may have your exit strategy all mapped out, but I still have a job to do. However, before I go running off, I plan to finish this fine cigar here and enjoy the night air. If you really plan on heading out of here, as much as I'll hate to see you go, you should be gone before I'm done."

"You plan on staying on after all of this?"

"Let's be honest, kid..." Weaver drew another puff off his cigar. "What else is an old man like me going to do?"

"What if they have the same plan for you as they did for Monk?"

"s.h.i.t... Dying's easy... it's living that's hard."

Cleese smiled and scratched at the back of his neck.

"I thought it was comedy that was hard."

"Son... Life is comedy. I thought you knew that."

Cleese stared into the eyes of his friend for some time. While he didn't condone him sticking around, he sort of understood it. Weaver wasn't exactly a young man and The League was all he'd known since losing his wife. And despite even the n.o.blest of intentions, it was as they say, "Better the Devil you know than the Devil you don't." He extended his hand and clasped his friend's. Cleese broadly smiled at the big man and held tight.

"You're a good man, my friend. I'll miss Friday Follies."

"As will I, Son. As will I."

Cleese turned and slid his hand into the duffle bag which lay like a dog at his feet.

Weaver looked at him and c.o.c.ked a furry eyebrow over the rim of his big gla.s.ses.

From within the folds of the duffel bag, Cleese brought out the gauntlet Weaver constructed for him wrapped in a soft cloth.

The spike.

Cleese handed the bundle to Weaver with a sort of reverence.

"This little contraption of yours saved my a.s.s more times than I could ever count, Man. I want you to have it back."

For the countless time that night, a lump quivered deep within Weaver's throat. It was with this act of returning the gauntlet that he knew it all to be real; an end of an era, a chapter closed, another road mark pa.s.sed on the way toward the end of his life.

He grinned broadly at Cleese, heartily shook his hand again, and slid the gauntlet into the folds of his jacket. Its weight was heavy and full of bitter-sweet memories as he held it, much the same way he did his grief, tightly against his chest.

"Any loose ends?" Weaver asked.

"A few... Nothing for you to worry about though," Cleese said with a chilling finality, "Now, turn around and go back to suckin' on that stogie. I want to keep you out of the s.h.i.t storm I know will be coming. You've been a good friend to me, Weaver. I'd like to keep it that way."

The two men looked at one another for a moment and then Cleese set to closing the duffel bag. When he was done, Weaver was waiting with a second Macanudo in his hand. With a smile, he handed it to Cleese.

"For the road..."

Cleese smile and raised the cigar as if in toast.

"To Monk."

"Requiescat in pace," Weaver said and turned his back. He drew in another mouthful of acrid smoke and reminded himself to always remember this moment. He blew the soft plumes into the air with a sigh and silently watched the smoke drift off and into the blackness of the night.

"By the way," Weaver said to the silence, "Monk was d.a.m.n proud of you, Son. He told me so many times."

The silence didn't respond, but instead spread itself across the loading dock; cold and lonely and all too final.

"Cleese?"

Weaver turned around again, but Cleese was gone.

Requital Philip Monroe walked into the parking garage and the sound of the elevator doors hissing shut behind him went unnoticed. The low ceilings and close walls of the place gave it a tight claustrophobic feel, like a large concrete mortuary vault. Pillars of rough grey stone were set in organized rows, their upright beams solidly supporting the floors above. The flat of the cement flooring laid cold and gaudily painted with lines and arrows; its slick surface adding to the echo-inducing vastness.

He made his way across the large expanse of pavement with a noticeable sense of determination, the silk of his Dolce & Gabbana suit swishing softly within the thrumming silence of the concrete structure. As he walked down the center aisle, he switched his briefcase from one hand to the other. As he did so, he caught a glimpse of his reflection in a nearby BMW's tinted window. He was pleased with what saw. Despite the s.h.i.tty day he'd just experienced, he was still managing to look pretty good.

And why shouldn't he?

It was his business to look good. His image was an integral part of what he considered to be his unique skill set; a distinctive collection of talents which helped him time and time again to sway a client over to his way of thinking. He was a man who made it his business to use everything at his disposal to convince other people to see things his way. If he couldn't convince someone by logic and reason, a flash of some gold cufflinks or the glimmer of the pearly whites could usually save the day.

As he made his way through the lot, weaving his way between cars and over curb-stops, he felt a sudden, slightly nauseating wave of fatigue cascade over his body. All he could think about was how much he wanted to get home, and the faster he got there, the better. All day, he'd been dealing with the fall-out from Cleese's rather unsatisfying end to his last match and then his abrupt disappearance afterward. The whole thing left him feeling exhausted and a little sick to his stomach.

Cleese.

That son of a b.i.t.c.h.

Monroe had been hesitant to sign him to The League in the beginning, but he went ahead and did it anyway. Fighters were always a troublesome lot and Cleese had proven no different. They were base, unruly and always dumber than a bag of hammers. Still... he'd sure as h.e.l.l made them a f.u.c.kload of money. The still-acc.u.mulating revenue was the only silver lining in an otherwise s.h.i.t-laden cloud.

For quite some time now, Monroe had thought of Cleese as a revenue stream to be plundered, a work horse. Nothing more than chattel. As everyone knows, before you can put a horse to work, you have to break his spirit. Cleese's spirit had been more resilient than he'd thought it would be. The incident in the Training Hall was nothing more than a sign that he wasn't getting the "who's really in charge here" message.

And there was no way-no f.u.c.king way-Monroe was going to let that incident slide. The thought of that day and the way things went down still filled him with rage. How dare that cra.s.s b.a.s.t.a.r.d put his meaty hands on him! How dare he expose him to that kind of danger... in that place. Monroe still bristled when he thought of how close Cleese had put him to one of those... those things.

Ok, sure... Cleese had been p.i.s.sed as h.e.l.l over how things had turned out. The magazine of blanks ploy had been risky, but well worth it. Monroe suspected that an audience seeing a fighter empty a clip and do no damage would bring in big ratings. And he was right. The numbers on the broadcast had been astronomical. In fact, the surge carried over to the next week's show as well. Who cared if s.h.i.t like that put one of those reprobate fighters in danger?

After all, it was what those idiots were being paid for.

Then there was the Chikara incident. Yeah, that didn't exactly go as planned, now did it? He'd thought that adding a few more of those things to the mix would make the round more exciting and he was right again. How was he to know she'd get herself distracted and be taken down? But it was a risk all of the fighters took when they signed on their contract's bottom line.

No one was ever guaranteed a Get Out Of Jail Free Card...

No matter how popular they were.

Of course, how Cleese managed to deduce that Monroe had anything to do with any of it was still a question that was up for discussion. It could have been the equipment manager or a production a.s.sistant who'd said something to someone who said something to someone else, but there was no way of being sure.

Who knew? People talked.

But then again, who really gave a s.h.i.t? There was no tangible proof.

And that lack of proof was Monroe's ace up his sleeve.

Plausible deniability, baby.

If it was good enough for Richard Nixon, it was good enough for him.

And, looking back, that was where he probably should have left well enough alone.

But then, Masterson told him how Monk had gotten tagged while pulling some new recruit's meat out of the grease. Monroe took the news as what it was: pure providence. They'd brought Monk back as what he was-a resource. The decision for him to fight was a given. What else were they going to have him do now that he was dead, their taxes?

No, he was a fighter when he was alive and he would be a fighter now that he was one of the reanimated dead. Who he'd be fighting was never really in question. It had pretty much decided itself. Cleese was getting uppity and he needed to be reminded of who held the reigns. He would either have to fall into line-get with the League's program-or he could just as well f.u.c.k right off. All of it-the blanks, Chikara's regrettable death and finally the addition of Monk as an active UD-should have been enough for him to see exactly which side his bread was b.u.t.tered on. That was just the way things sometimes worked.

It wasn't about what was good for the fighter.

In the end, it was only about what was good for the League.

Monroe smiled to himself, recalling the open-mouthed look of astonishment that'd dawned on Cleese's face when he got his first glimpse of Monk.

G.o.d, it had been sooo sweet.

"Feed me to those things, huh?" he sniffed under his breath as he turned and made his way to the aisle where his parking spot was. "Yeah, well... how'd that work out for ya?"

He was now within fifty feet of his car, a cla.s.sic steely black Jaguar XJ220 Pininfarina. He'd paid a pretty penny for the car and it had been worth every cent. During the mid-nineties, the Sultan of Brunei and his brother, Prince Jefri, secretly bought hundreds of supercars and had them customized by some of the best in the business. There were only a few in existence, but sometimes having enough money and the right connections made even the impossible possible. Weber himself introduced Monroe to the Southeast Asian seller and had even helped to have the car shipped. It was a beautiful machine and Monroe doted over it like he would a beloved child.

As he approached the automobile, his mind had already begun to move on to the rest of his evening. He was scheduled to have dinner with Claire and then the two of them would rush off for a "meet and greet" that Weber Industries scheduled in order to celebrate the recent jump in Fight Night ratings. Word of Cleese's disappearance had not yet filtered down to any of the affiliates, but Monroe was already putting his spin on that particular ball, for when it did. The official company line was going to be that the man was certifiable-a thug-and, despite the WGF's stringent filtering processes, he'd gotten through.

Yeah, sorry about that...

And even though Cleese had proven himself to be a good earner, his induction into the League had been a mistake, but one that was being dealt with accordingly. The League had too much invested to risk a dime of it on someone with as much instability as Cleese exhibited. The cold facts were that he'd been behaving erratically lately, even going so far as to attack another fighter in the gym as well as a League official. If any of the affiliates doubted it, Monroe still had bruising he could show them to verify the point.

Monroe arrived at the Jag and looked the car over with loving approval. He'd worked long and hard to procure the trappings of wealth and all his plotting and scheming had finally started to pay off. He'd come up from the poor section of Chicago and had lied, cheated and yes, even stolen to make it this far. In that way, truth be told, he and Cleese were somewhat alike. Growing up poor either made a man ambitious or a hoodlum. Monroe had chosen ambition and affluence for his life's course. Cleese chose booze, broads and brawling. Monroe lived in a penthouse with a beautiful woman. Cleese was a criminal who did unimaginable things to pocket change. In the end, Monroe was the one who could look himself in the eye in the mirror and still feel a sense of pride and accomplishment. While Cleese on the other hand... what could he see in his reflection other than the face of an outlaw and a gorilla?

Monroe had done what he'd done for very specific reasons and now he was finally living a bit of the good life. This car was just one example of that. Important people in the WGF had already told him that he was destined for great things and he liked the way that sounded.

d.a.m.n straight he did.

Reaching into the pocket of his slacks, he found his key ring and hit the b.u.t.ton on it to unlock his door. The chirp of the Jag's alarm disarming echoed through the building. He slid his fingers under the door's handle like he would into a lover's blouse and gently pulled it open. With a sigh, he dropped himself into the leather of the car's driver seat and wriggled into a comfortable position. Once set, he reached over, set his briefcase on the floor in front of the pa.s.senger's seat, and then pulled the door shut behind him. Sliding his key into the ignition, Monroe breathed deep of the air inside the car. G.o.d, he loved the smell of this car. It had the rich odor of leather and wood that he'd always equated with money.

And if there was one thing that he liked the smell of, it was money.

Monroe lovingly slid his fingers around the key and gently turned the ignition. The starter caught at once and the engine jumped to life. The car purred softly as he revved the engine. Then, slipping the transmission into gear, he backed carefully out of its s.p.a.ce. With a gentle hand, he guided the Jag forward. The car slid across the ground like a python. It moved with barely a sound, only the quiet hissing of its tires on the cement to mark its pa.s.sing. Its engine's power growled under his foot, and, G.o.d knew, it felt good.

Monroe carefully angled the Jag down the aisle and toward the exit ramp as he had many times before. Just for a second, he worried whether the car would make it through the tight corridor. He jogged the car around and drove up the ramp and into the blackness beyond.