Page 2 (1/2)

South Boston, present day

"Hey! Wait a--Save that shit for the ring!" Isaac Rothe shoved the advertising flyer across the car hood, ready to slaain if he had to "What&039;s ht pro, so Isaac reached out and grabbed the guy by the front of the jacket "I said, what&039;son here?"

"Relax, will ya--"

Isaac brought the two of theot a whiff of the pot the SOB smoked "I told you No pictures of me Ever "

The promoter&039;s hands lifted in the conversational equiv of a tap-out "I&039;m sorryI&039;et me the crowds You&039;re like the star of hter to cut off the ego stroking "No pictures Or no fighting We clear?"

The promoter sed hard and squeaked, "Yeah Sorry"

Isaac released his hold and ignored the wheezing as he cru around the abandoned warehouse&039;s parking lot, he cursed hi stupid of hi was, names were not all that important Anybody could type up a Tom, Dick, or Harry on an ID card or a birth certificate or a passport All you needed was the right typeface and a la shot, your face, your puss, your pieholeunless you had the funds and the contacts to plastic-surgery your ass, that was the one true identifier you had

And his had just gotten a workout at Kinko&039;s God only kne many people had seen it

Or who had zeroed in on his whereabouts

"Look, I was just doing you a favor" The proer the crowd, the er up the guy&039;s stovepipe "You need to shut the fuck up right now And remember what I said"

"Yeah Okay Sure"

There were a nu-you-likes that followed, but Isaac turned his back on the babble, babble

All around, grownat each other like fifteen-year-olds, the bunch of juiced-up, arallery it up: The closest they were going to get to the octagon was standing on the outside of the chicken wire looking in

The fact that Isaac was alround MMAfor him didn&039;t need any help, and that happy little close-up along with the telephone number in the 617 area code was precisely the exposure he didn&039;t need

Last thing he needed was an operative orGod forbid, Matthias&039;s second in co up here

Besides, it was just too fucking du coupled with illegal gaiven the size of the crowds that showed up, the audience clearly had enough reedy ht or not? The flyers had just beento the man who&039;d shown it to himand as he mentally counted the money he&039;d salted away, he could sure as hell use the extra thousand or two he&039;d earn tonight

He glanced around and knew he had to get in the octagon Shitonce one

Just one last ti over to the warehouse&039;s rear entrance, he ignored the Holy-shit&039;s and the pointing and the That&039;s-hi hiuys for the last month, and evidently this made him a hero in their eyes

Which was a whacked value system, as far as he was concerned He was about as far froet

The bouncers at the back door both stepped aside to let hiht at this particular "facility," but really, the locations were all the same In and around Boston, there were plenty of abandoned walk-ups, warehouses, and whatevers where fifty guys ished they were Chuck Liddell could watch half a dozen ere definitely not flap around in circles in amath added up to why the promoter had repro&039;d Isaac&039;s head Unlike the other bare-knucklers, he knehat he was doing

Although considering howhim, he&039;d have to be a total tool not to crack skulls like eggs by now

And weren&039;t all those skills, as well as soto help hiht as he stepped into the building

Tonight&039;s poor-man&039;s MGM Grand was about sixty thousand square feet of cold air anchored by a concrete floor and four walls&039; worth of dirty s The "octagon" was set up in the far corner, the eight-sided ring bolted in and surprisingly sturdy

Then again, there were a lot of construction guys ere into this shit

Isaac went past the pair of thick-necks ere handling the ga if he needed anything to drink or eat or whatever Shaking his head, he went to the corner behind the ring and settled in, his back to the juncture of the walls He was always the last to fight because he was the draw, but there was no telling when he&039;d be up Most of the "fighters" didn&039;t last long, but every once in a while you got a pair of stayers who pawed at each other like two old grizzlies until even he was ready to yell, Enough, already

There were no refs and things got stopped only when there was a heaving, red faced, walleyed idiot as flat on his back with the winning urban warrior Weeblewobbling next to hi, liver and faed The one restriction was that you had to fight hatever the good Lord gave you at birth: You couldn&039;t bring brass knuckles, chains, knives, sand, or any of that crap inside the wire

When the first , Isaac panned the faces in the crowd instead of as doing in the ring He was searching for the out-of-place, for the eyes that were on him, for the face he knew from the past five years instead of the five weeks since he&039;d been gone

Man, he knew he shouldn&039;t have used his real naone for the fake ID, he should have chosen another Sure, the social security wasn&039;t his own, but the name