Three seconds later, a shot rang out.

----------------------------------------------

December 28, 2009
New York, New York

All Phillip Kennedy wanted to do was watch the Minnesota-Chicago game.

But when your drinking companion at the bar was Michael Vain, the subject tended to turn to pussy pretty fucking quickly.

'Man, how the fuck is that POSSIBLE?'

Michael Vain, bodyguard to one Phillip Kennedy (in the on-air sense, at least), damn near spat out his mouthful of vodka and cranberry juice. He pulled down his shades to look his buddy in the eyes, in absolute disbelief. 'You've only banged TWO bitches since signing with Sin City? TWO? Man, I know dorky cats who get more ass than that from D&D games! What the Hell's WRONG with you?'

Kennedy shrugged at his boisterous colleague, and took a hearty swig of his beer. 'I was on the road with Shaw most of the damned time, Mike. That woman is goddamned insatiable. My dick was too sore to go do much else. One time she pissed me off and I took some girl back to my hotel room when she was off fucking other guys, but shit, Vain, I ain't a machine.'

'That ain't no fuckin' excuse,' Vain scoffed. 'This is VEGAS, man! You live in Vegas! Guys with no arms get laid here on the regular. And you a celebrity, fuck! I was a small time MMA guy here and my cock's been--'

'I get it,' Phillip said, quickly, trying to cut off what was likely to be one of his friend's favored complex sexual metaphors. 'It's not like I COULDN'T have gotten women, you know! There are rats everywhere at SCCW shows.'

'Hell to the yeah,' came the reply, and Phil was fairly sure that Michael Vain had indulged his fair share. 'And any excuses yo' ass had when you was with that freaky Kat chick are gone now. You're single and famous. If you don't end up linked to more girls than Tiger Woods I am gonna be SORELY fuckin' disappointed with you.'

Phillip groaned, even as he flagged down a waiter to order another beer. Minnesota-Chicago was about three minutes from starting, and he'd thrown down a sucker's bet on the underdog. Considering Jay Cutler's penchant for interceptions, he expected he'd need harder alcohol by the end of the first quarter. 'I don't need that sort of complication in my life,' he finally told Michael. 'I'm a simple man, with simple pleasures.'

'Was only complicated for Tiger cause he was married and had all those endorsement deals. Fucked up his image right good. You ain't got a squeaky clean image, Phil. Best I can tell, everyone thinks you're an asshole.'

'That's probably because I *AM* an asshole, Mike,' Kennedy replied. 'Dave Gibson seems to think so, as do most of the SCCW fans.'

'Eh,' Vain replied, finishing off his cocktail, 'you ain't a real asshole. You're the kinda asshole people like to hang with. You're a prick, but you ain't bad to deal with. You're the lead brother of the frat, the star quarterback of the football team.' Vain paused for a moment, and looked up at one of the bar's TVs. 'Go pick that fucker Cutler off!' he screamed, and met Kennedy's disapproving gaze. 'Sorry Phil,' Vain quickly said, 'but I got Minnesota D and I'm in my fantasy league championship.'

Phillip was quite happy Michael had moved on from the topic of getting laid. Said moving on, however, had been merely temporary.

'But yeah--' Vain began, cut off with a scream of 'FUCK YE--NO!' as a Vikings defender almost picked off Cutler's first pass. He shook his head, but then turned back to Phil. 'You're single now. No attachments. No sponsorships. You should be gettin' laid a fuck of a lot more than you are. And you're in Vegas. No fuckin' excuses. You need to take some girl back to your room tonight and give her the nuts.'

Phil was tempted to make a pun off of the move he'd used in his demolition of Foster Nackedy, but puns weren't really his style. 'Everyone here's drunk of their ass, Mike,' Phillip scoffed. 'Ain't much fun when they just lie there.'

'So you find the tipsy ones,' Vain exclaimed. 'Fuck, this is the capital of the fuckin' world for librarians who wanna do somethin' wild. You have any idea how many nice innocent lookin' chicks tell me I'm their first brother? Do ya?'

'From what you've told me,' Phillip replied, groaning, 'it's a pretty big number.'

'Exactly, man! That's the fuckin' gold mine, the closet freaky girls. You need one of those. Kathryn was hot and all, but she looked like a hooker. What you see is what you get and all. Don't worry, Ace. I'll find you one. I got an eye for the closet freaky chicas.'

Kennedy's second beer arrived, allowing him to lose himself for a moment in the mug and ponder why he continued to hang out with Michael Vain. Sure, they were buddies, but Vain had a tendency to be, well, vain, arrogant, and braggadocious.

Of course, one could say the same about Phil himself. That probably explained it.

The Big Stack allowed himself a small, tight smile as Chicago began to move the ball on the TV. He didn't bet sports much, but when he did, he always bet the underdog. Betting on an expected outcome seemed to not be gambling at all to him.

'You're not gonna take no for an answer, I take it,' Phil asked. Mr. Vain promptly grinned, and shook his head firmly no. 'Believe me, Phil, you need to get laid, and I'm gonna make sure it happens. You don't need the help. Shit, you're put together and famous. It's like shooting fish in a barrel for you. Just consider me quality control. If Tiger had me around, he sure as fuck wouldn'ta been caught with no skank-ass cocktail waitresses.'

Phil scratched his freshly-shaven chin. 'That did catch me off guard about that whole deal, actually,' he had to admit. 'He's Tiger Woods, known all over the planet and a multi-billionaire. That's the best he could do?'

'Naw,' Michael said, waving his hand dismissively. 'He coulda done much better. He just wanted the pussy. When you're hungry for pussy, as long as it meets your minimum criteria, you don't really care. I know. I've been there. Most guys have. It's the thrill of the...I can't even say chase, cause all he had to do was hint being interested. Guy like that, skanks like that, match made in heaven. You've seen his wife. Balls-hot Swedish chick. He ain't doin' much better than her. But he needs the pussy, so...' Vain shrugged, considering his statement self-explanatory.

'I'm not saying gettin' laid isn't nice,' Kennedy said, as if trying to insulate himself from future criticism, 'but I like having a regular piece much better. Whether it's dating or just benefits...both people are up front about what they want. Ain't got to worry about people selling their story to the Enquirer.'

After thinking about it for a moment or two, Vain nodded. 'Yeah. I can see it bein' like that for ya. You're a private guy, Phil. Lot moreso than mosta the famous guys I've met.'

Kennedy didn't THINK of himself as being especially private, but nor was he a fame whore. Glancing around the bar, his eyes locked for moments with various people. Some had glimmers of recognition in their eyes, others had no clue who he was. He was a famous wrestler, which was much different than being, say, Tiger Woods, or Jude Law, or other such megastars.

He gave a fistpump at the sight of Brett Favre losing the football. 'Fuck yeah!' he growled, pounding about half his brew.

'Phil!'

Bears were on the move again. At this rate, they'd at least cover, if not win outright, and he'd have a little extra spending money in his pocket.

'PHIL!'

Another fistpump at Matt Forte stretching out the play and managing to make a first down out of what should have been a three yard loss.

Rolling his eyes at his buddy's lack of attentiveness, Michael Vain buried a half-force elbow in Kennedy's ribs. When you were a mixed martial artist, though, even half force shots hurt pretty bad.

'Jesus, man, this ain't the cage,' Phil hissed. Vain didn't respond at first, except to reach out with one of his huge hands, grab Kennedy by the shoulder, and turn him ninety degrees to the right.

Kennedy's eyes instantly fell upon a tall, leggy redhead. He judged her to be wearing roughly two inch heels, a black dress that bordered on the line between tasteful and revealing, and a sly sort of grin that seemed to indicate she knew something the world didn't.

'That,' Michael Vain said, 'is the one. If not for your ass, I woulda been chatting her up two minutes ago.'

'She's a redhead,' Phillip replied. 'Redheads ain't right in the head. At least not in my experience with them.'

'Don't even pretend you didn't want to fuck Desade or Amy,' Michael said. 'You can't fool a friend with that shit.'

'If I wanted to do a punky girl I'd have slept with Lauren Fox,' Kennedy proclaimed, before remembering a particularly *nice* memory of his time in the Dead Man's Hand. 'More than once.'

'So your total's up to three, then,' Vain said. 'At least you're a tiny bit less pathetic. But still! Campbell's hot, you can admit that. And Alex...'

'She's creepy. Too creepy for me.' The thought of her and Amy in bed together was fantasy fuel for a lot of people, but it turned Phillip's stomach. Even so, he was willing to admit that was at least in part due to his professional dealings with both women.

'Just because two redheads you know got a bad case of sand in the vag doesn't mean you should give up on them, Phil. That's the act of a fool. Besides, if you don't go over there, I will. I ain't goin' home alone tonight, if you catch my drift. That can be your girl, or she can be mine. I'm offerin' her to ya. I can find others.'

Taking another glance at the woman, Kennedy nodded. 'Alright, alright, I get the point. I'll go over there.' Reaching into his pocket, Kennedy peeled a twenty dollar bill out of his money clip, and slammed it down on the table. Placing his beer mug over it, Kennedy nodded to his friend. 'I'll see you in Canada. When's your flight outta Vegas?'

'Late tomorrow. I'll be in touch.' Vain waved Kennedy away. 'I'll sit here and take in the rest of the game. You go take care of business.'

Hopping down from his bar stool, Kennedy nodded a goodbye to Michael, and then began to wander in the...general direction of the redheaded woman. The direct approach wasn't generally Kennedy's strength, at all. In spite of his fame, picking up women wasn't part of his general modus operandi.

As he got closer, he was stunned to see that the woman was sitting alone. Not just alone in the 'without obvious companions' sense, but there was no one within two stools of the bar from her.

Definitely odd, but Kennedy tried to limit his dwelling on odd things to his professional career.

He took a seat on the stool to her left. Almost immediately, the bartender moved over to the tall man in the cowboy hat, expecting him to order a considerable amount of alcohol on the evening.

'Just get me whatever's on tap,' Kennedy said, reaching into his wallet and plucking out a credit card. 'I'll open a tab while I'm at it.'

The bartender grinned, and went to go get his newest patron a frosty cold mug.

While waiting for his brew, Kennedy took the opportunity to take a closer look at the woman to his right. It was difficult to see anything because the woman seemed utterly engrossed in the football game as the Bears sent out their field goal unit to close out the first half. Only after the field goal was good did she lower her eyes from the TV, and glance over her shoulder, suddenly aware of her company.

'Enjoying the game,' he asked, as she swiveled in her stool to face him. This allowed him to get a better look at her. Even up close, her dress was still tasteful, revealing just a hint of cleavage. Her hair fell back in waves over her shoulders, and freckles dotted her cheeks. She was definitely pretty, but definitely in a more...natural sort of way. He knew she was probably wearing makeup, but damned if he could tell.

She nodded in reply. 'I am, yes.'

Nothing to work with. At all. Phillip almost sighed, but forced himself to move along with the conversation. 'What brings you here all alone? Not the sort of place I'd usually expect to see a pretty girl by herself.'

Perhaps the saddest part of the above was that it really wasn't intended as a pick up line.

'I'm out here for work,' she said, nodding thankfully as the bartender placed a martini of some make and model in front of her. At Kennedy's confusion, she continued. 'I'm a saleswoman for a pharmaceuticals company. There's a big convention in town.'

'Sounds interesting,' Phillip mused, taking his mug of beer from the bartender and beginning work on his third of the evening.

'It's really not,' she replied, her demeanor growing a bit more annoyed. 'It's been one headache after another all weekend. Just want to relax...'

With the halftime show airing, she didn't seem to have much to do *except* talk to Phillip. After a quick glance up at the TV, she turned back to him. 'I'm sorry, I never told you my name. Elizabeth Traynor. Nice to meet you, Mr...'

'Kennedy,' he concluded. 'First name's Phillip. And the pleasure's mine.'

They shook hands, and Kennedy was surprised to see just how firm her handshake was, a sharp contrast to how slender her fingers were.

'What do you do for a living, Mr. Kennedy,' Elizabeth asked. 'You certainly seem well put together. Are you an athlete of some kind?'

He nodded. 'Yeah. Ain't the typical sort, though,' Phil replied. 'I'm a pro wrestler by trade. Used to be on the pro poker circuit, but I liked getting a regular paycheck a lot better than worrying about if I'd make rent every month.'

'I can understand that,' she replied. 'I haven't watched much pro wrestling in my life.'

'Basically, I work for a place called Sin City Championship Wrestling,' Kennedy explained. 'It's pro wrestling on crack. Half the time I have no idea what the Hell's going on, and I work there.'

'Actually, now that you mention it...' She rose from the stool to look at him, circling him carefully. 'You were on ESPN once, weren't you? I remember you got attacked by a redheaded woman.'

'Alexandra, yeah,' Kennedy admitted, sheepishly. 'That was Sinner's Choice, one time show to hype up our pay per view. ESPN people didn't like us so much, really. We're on Cinemax for a reason.'

'Ah, so you're not for kiddies,' she asked, seeming actually sort of interested.

'We do try to be for a more...ah, mature audience,' Phillip agreed. 'Even more so than wrestling was at the end of the 90s. We're the sort of thing you don't have to be embarrassed to be caught watching.'

Unless, of course, you were a sunshine and daffodils sort of person, in which case not only would SCCW embarrass you, it might scar you for life.

'Sounds like fun,' Elizabeth agreed. 'I'll have to tune in to see you sometime. Maybe when I'm back home. I've got another business trip this week. Stuck flying out to Ottawa tomorrow morning.'

'Ottawa,' Kennedy asked. 'We've got a show coming from there on the fourth of January, if you're still in the neighborhood. I can give you a ticket, they give me a small allotment.'

She seemed to mull the offer over in her head, tossing her head backwards and sending her hair cascading down her shoulders. It caused a sharp intake of breath from Phillip, who breathed a soft sigh of relief when she nodded her head.

'I think I'd enjoy that, yes,' Elizabeth said, a small smile on her face. Picking up a napkin from the bar, she reached into her purse and quickly scribbled down a series of numbers. 'My cell,' she explained, handing the napkin to Phillip. 'I probably need to get going soon. I have a 4:30 AM wake-up call tomorrow morning.'

'Oh,' Kennedy said, trying not to sound too disappointed. 'That's probably for the best, yes. I'll give you a call when I'm in Ottawa?'

'Sounds good to me,' she agreed, and gently wrapped her arms around his neck in a quick embrace. Kennedy's nostrils flared, taking in the scent of a delicate perfume. 'I shall see you then. Have a good evening, Phil. Enjoy the game.'

Her leaving was all grace and femininity. She moved in the sort of way that he always noticed women did. Even women like Amy and Alex, no one's wilting flowers. There was a sort of grace in the movement of the feminine form that he could never hope to duplicate.

'Pretty girl,' he said to himself, as he collected his credit card from the bartender and threw down a tip in paper money. 'Don't see many like her in Vegas.'

By 'like her', he meant real. Untouched by plastic surgery or excessive cynicism, two of the main altering effects of Las Vegas.

Glancing over his shoulder in the direction of the table he'd shared with Michael Vain, he found no 6'5' black man. Well. That meant one thing.

'Probably bedding someone as we speak,' he whispered to himself, smile growing. If nothing else, Mr. Vain knew how to have a good time.

The urge for a cigarette came over him suddenly. He wasn't an addicted smoker by any stretch, but Kennedy lit one up every now and then out of some combination of stress or need. The back door of the casino, one of many, was a few hundred yards away.

'Maybe I can bum one offa somebody,' Phillip thought, and began his walk from the bar through the rows of slot machines towards the way out.

As he stepped outside, it wasn't quite warm, nor was it quite cold. Too cold for the attire he was wearing, at least without a jacket, and it would have been too warm if he'd had that jacket on.

'Dark as shit out here,' Kennedy murmured, looking around for a sympathetic smoker. 'Great place for a--'

'AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!'

Nothing like a piercing shriek to get your adrenaline pumping. Phillip knew that the best move was to go inside and avoid running into whatever had caused that shriek, but Kennedy was never the sharpest tool in the shed. Besides, adrenaline was coursing through his veins, and it was go time.

'I'm coming,' he yelled in response, running down the entrance's stairs, and hanging a left around a corner of the building in pursuit of the screaming voice.

And that brought Phillip Kennedy to the crisis that he faced in this particular instant.

------------------------------

It was almost an out-of-body experience for Phillip as he watched the unkempt man scream out in pain, and clutch at his right shoulder. The woman on the ground was seemingly forgotten as the assailant switched the knife into his left hand, and charged Kennedy.

He only made it three steps before the still astonished Kennedy fired a second time, this shot out of pure instinct. The recoil drove Phillip back a step and a half. Once he managed to force his eyes back to the attacker, he found the man lying on his back, motionless, no more than five paces away from him. Even in the dim light provided by the streetlights back behind the casino, Phillip could see the hole in the man's chest, about heart-high.

Kennedy watched, stock-still, as Elizabeth tried to steady her breathing. She still wasn't able to get up yet, and she seemed to be clutching at her arms. A distant corner of his mind told him that she'd probably been cut trying to fend the attacker off.

And then, as Kennedy still tried to process the fact that he'd *shot someone*, a voice screamed, and Phillip was posiitive that his wrestling career was fucked.

'I saw everything,' that feminine voice shouted, and he heard footsteps running up behind him. Kennedy's gun arm fell to his side. The only bracelets in his life in the near future, he knew, were going to be police-issue.

'You were so brave!' he then heard, and his eyes widened. The owner of that voice came to a stop at his side. By Kennedy's judgment, she couldn't have been more than eighteen or nineteen. 'You saved her!'

'He certainly did,' Elizabeth said, her voice shaky. Even so, she was sitting up, and she shot Kennedy an utterly grateful look. 'If not for him, I would be...'

'Don't even finish the sentence,' Phillip said, grimacing. 'I don't...I can't even...'

'I'll call the police,' the young onlooker said, 'and I'll get you two help. Just stay here!' With that, she dashed back into the back entrance of the casino, leaving Elizabeth and Phillip alone with a dead man.

'I'm a...murderer,' Phillip said, his voice a far cry from the confident tone it usually had. Phillip Kennedy was capable of all manner of atrocities in the wrestling ring and its surrounding locales, but never had he done anything more than punch out someone outside of it. Now, he had a death on his hands.

'You are,' Elizabeth concurred, dusting herself off as she rose to her feet. 'Not all murders are bad, though. I'd say this can be chalked up as one of the good ones.'

As she approached him, Phillip couldn't help but be astonished by how calm she was, under the circumstances. She had just almost died; there were cuts on her arms from her attacker's knife that were still dripping blood. And yet, she had the composure to stand, fling both of her arms around him, and kiss him soundly on the mouth in gratitude.

If he was astonished now, however, he hadn't seen anything yet.

The Tuesday morning news in the Las Vegas area would give him one more thing to wonder about in regards to a night chock full of such grist for the mental mill.

------------------------------

'I'm James Cain, filling in for Rebecca Naylor. Our top story this morning is an incident that occurred outside the New York, New York casino at 2 AM last night. Perhaps best known for his bad boy character on SCCW Temptation, today, news has come to light painting Phillip Kennedy in a far better light. We're going to take you on scene with Jacob Marley. Take it away, Jacob.'

The news scene abruptly cuts away, and returns to out front of the casino. The helpful chyron identifies the reporter by name, and he immediately begins to do his job.

'Last night, an altercation occurred behind this famous Las Vegas institution. It was no different than many similar instances: an armed robber attacking a tourist. Making this story unique, however, is that a knight in shining armor came to the victim's rescue.'

A series of clips begin to roll on screen. The first is Phillip Kennedy nailing Alexandra Pierce with the Acecracker Lariat. The second is Kennedy driving Foster Nackedy head-first through a table on SIN on SPIKE. 'Courtesy SCCW, Cinemax, SPIKE TV' appears in the lower right hand corner.

'This is Phillip Kennedy,' Cain stated, ' a thirty-three year old professional wrestler and former poker player. Last night, he found himself in as high stakes a situation as one possibly can -- life and death. Police tell us that he saved the life of a young woman behind this very casino. Channel 13 brings you comments made just a few moments ago by the only witness to this incident, Emily Jenkins.'

The young, slightly bubbly witness to the events that occurred behind New York, New York the prior evening appears on screen, with her own chyron.

'I was standing out behind the hotel, smoking a cigarette,' she said, making sure to look directly into the camera. 'Then, all of a sudden, I saw this really creepy looking man accosting this poor girl in a black dress. He pulled out a gun, and she managed to knock it out of his hand and kick it away. The guy tried to stab her with a knife, but this really brave guy picked up the gun and saved her!'

The reporter returns to the screen, his voice solemn. 'Police tell us that the assailant was forty-one year old Robert Michaels, a Las Vegas resident. He had a criminal record, and had served ten years in prison for armed robbery. He was released on parole early for good behavior sometime in 2008. The victim of the attack was twenty-seven year old Erica Dayne, a resident of California in Las Vegas on business. Mr. Michaels was shot twice, once in the right shoulder, and again in the chest.'

Once again, the scene switches back to the press conference, and now Phillip Kennedy stands at the podium, looking extremely sheepish in the face of all of the media attention.

'He was hunched over the young woman,' Kennedy said, 'poised to strike with his knife. She'd kicked the gun out his hand, and it fell on the floor, where she kicked it over in my general direction. She deserves as much credit as I do. For her to be able to find me in the darkness back behind the casino was unbelievable. I'm just fortunate I was able to help her.'

With Kennedy's take on the situation done, we return to the newsdesk.

'The police investigation is still ongoing, but the LVPD is expected to announce its findings in the near future. Attempts to contact SCCW for comments on its newest hero went unanswered. For those that want to see Phillip in action as the brash Big Stack, tune into SCCW Temptation on Cinemax this week, where he will be taking part in the company's first ever 'Canadian Chaos' eve--.'

From his hotel room in New York, New York, Phillip Kennedy pushed the 'off' button on his remote. His first day as a newfound local celebrity had been somewhat hectic, to say the least. There had been a few interviews, with both media and the police department. There had been claps on the back and well-wishes from casino patrons. Kennedy had even had to postpone his flight to Canada for Temptation due to all of the attention.

'Erica Dayne, huh? Wonder why she told me she was Elizabeth Traynor?'

It was one of a handful of questions he had. A handful of tiny concerns that he never would have had if not for his dealings with women like Alexandra Pierce. Why, for example, had the media not picked up on the fact that Erica, or Elizabeth, or whoever, had her own knife? Why hadn't Emily, who had presumably seen everything, mentioned that at all?

Moreover, why the Hell had Robert Michaels attacked her to begin with?

Shaking his head, Phil tried very hard to push those questions out of his mind. His association with the sociopath that was Alexandra Pierce couldn't cloud his dealings with the rest of the world.

He was a hero now. He had saved a woman from near certain death at the hands of a crazed attacker, and earned the adulation of many for his deed.

And yet, at the same time, he was also a murderer. He had taken the life of another person. Sure, it was in defense of himself and another, but the fact was he was now one step closer to the Alexandra Pierces and Kathryn Shaws of the world.

It wasn't a thought he liked. As he reminded himself every so often, he was an asshole. He wasn't...whatever the Hell Pierce was. He was the kind of man who would attack Foster Nackedy and put him through a table. He wasn't the sort of guy who would run Foster over with a car outside the arena.

Swallowing hard, Kennedy rose from his bed, and began going about the tasks of packing up and getting ready for his rescheduled flight to Canada. What he was resisting as best he could was the impulse to reach into his pocket and dial the newest contact added to his cell phone.

He was at the moment extremely hopeful that he'd be seeing Elizabeth/Erica at Temptation. More importantly, he was hoping that he'd be seeing her after it.

There were a handful of questions that he wanted to ask her.