# # #
June 9, 2010. 1:16 and twelve seconds.
Boston, Massachusetts.
Another two minutes and eighteen seconds, he thought, then I'm leaving.
Wyatt Connors listened to the rain patter against the window of the Boston Public Library. He'd been waiting in the astronomy section for three hours, idly flipping through the works of Neil deGrasse Tyson. Of course, it wasn't the facts in The Pluto Files that were keeping him there. He was supposed to meet someone for a very important proposition.
He hadn't seen her yet, but that was all right. She wasn't due for another--he checked his watch--twenty-six seconds. Wyatt slipped the book back onto the shelf, where it promptly disappeared from the other side. He stepped back and looked through the gap, and saw a crooked grin.
'Hiya, fucko,' it said.
Wyatt held a finger to his lips. 'Shh.'
The smile disappeared from view, and the person attached to it clomped around the aisle. She was a tiny conglomeration of bad manners and worse attitude, her long braids framing a wide nose and the same grin he saw earlier. A black t-shirt stretched across her flat chest, and her gray cargo pants hung baggily just above her traditional heavy black boots. She looked out of place in the library...but then, Cecilia Sicarii looked out of place nearly everywhere, except maybe a police lineup.
'Gotta say, Connors,' she said. 'Interestin' choice of meeting place.'
Connors whispered back, 'I figured it would be much harder for you to get a van up here.' Several of their previous encounters had taken place inside rented blue vans, and usually involved Wyatt getting dragged inside them from the street.
'I gotcha.' Cecilia--'Rat' to her friends, of which she had few--lowered her voice. 'But how come yer whisperin'?'
'Because it's a fucking library.'
'Ah.' She nodded, then continued talking--at her normal volume. 'So, how ya been? Tied any old ladies to railroad tracks lately?'
Wyatt was just about to answer when an interruption came from the end of the aisle. A small, mousy voice said, 'Excuse me...have you seen any books on postal communication?'
Connors turned sharply to the left and saw a young girl, probably nineteen, with a tangle of brown hair and thick glasses accentuating a timid expression. She faded quickly under the baleful glare of Wyatt Connors, and disappeared around the corner.
'Bit harsh, don'tcha think?' Rat chided.
'Her fault for not knowing the Dewey Decimal System. Now, if you'd care to get down to business?'
'Yeah, yeah. Always business with you. So what's the deal?'
'Not yet, and certainly not here.' he answered. 'I only plan on going through this once, so I'm not going to say a word until...'
Wyatt scowled as realization dawned. He lowered his head and pinched the bridge of his nose. 'Oh, goddammit.'
Rat shook her head, a bemused smirk on her face. 'You completely fucking blew it there, chief.'
'Just meet me in the second reading room,' he grumbled. 'She'll be on the other side of this shelf, or in the 380's.'
Connors stalked past the end of the shelves, not bothering to look back. She's right. Stupid mistake. Stupid, stupid, stupid. He had to resist the urge to slam the door when he entered the private room. Instead, he set himself down in the chair farthest from the door.
About a minute later, Sicarii and the college student came into the room as well. The girl with the glasses seemed terribly confused. 'Look, I'm sorry I bothered--'
'Hello, Alex,' Wyatt interrupted. 'Or...let's see. College-age girl taking summer classes, bashful, trying hard--but not too hard--to hide sexuality. Missy St. James?'
'Rebecca Chambers, actually.' There was no longer any trace of shyness in the girl's voice.
'Right. The sandals. Well, you might as well sit down. And take off those ridiculous glasses; I'm finding it hard to concentrate.'
Both Cecilia and Alex (Missy? Rebecca?) sat down on the opposite side of the plastic table. It was hardly a suitable location for a meeting between the two long-time adversaries, but it would have to do.
'Are you certain this location is secure?' Alex asked. 'No security devices?'
'I set up this meeting three days ago,' Connors snapped back. 'If there are any, they're yours.'
'Very well. Now tell me, what is it that you want?'
Wyatt cleared his throat. He gave out the truth about as often as the North Korean media, but he was in a bad position--as bad as he could ever remember. 'I'm sure Miss Sicarii has given you some of the details. Kathryn Shaw has approached me, demanding access to certain...visual documentations.'
'The photographs.' There was a hint of malice in Pierce's voice. She'd claimed to have turned over a new leaf, but Connors was unconvinced...and even if it was true, the pictures of Amy Campbell and herself remained a sore spot.
'Correct. Naturally, I turned her down flat--if she wants smear material, she can get it herself. Unfortunately, she's got a fact or two on me as well.'
Alex nodded. 'Neil Stanford?'
'Keith McGwire. If she knows about Stanford, she hasn't said...yet. But I can safely assume that she does, and a few others. The individual facts don't worry me so much. But if she can put them together, and do a little digging...well, I'm sure I won't like the result.'
He leaned forward slightly, but Alex stayed ramrod straight in her own chair. Cecilia leaned back and put her heavy boots on the table, causing small pieces of dirt to fall out of the cracks. Connors was dealing from a position of weakness, and they all knew it.
'Kathryn is trying to force you to relinquish the pictures,' Pierce said. 'I do not have to tell you how bad an idea that is.'
'No, you don't. But I know that she's using me to get to you...and she's using your information to get to me.'
'Not mine,' she stated flatly. 'The Order's.'
'Six of one, half-dozen of the other,' Wyatt replied. He paused for a moment--he'd hoped that his flippant comment would get some kind of reaction, but Pierce gave none. He was going to come out way behind on this deal--he'd have to offer something massive for Alex to agree. 'Anyway. Yes, the information was compiled by the Order--under your instruction, no doubt--and now, Shaw wants to put it to good use. I can't let that happen.
Sicarii's expression was one of mock concern, but Alex's face was like a stone...no movement, and no mercy. 'I do not care about your sob story, Mister Connors,' Pierce said. 'You have earned that, and more, with your actions. You told Cecilia that you had an offer; I suggest you make it now.'
'All right,' Connors said, throwing up his hands. 'I understand you're in the business of helping people these days. Well, I need help. I need you to...'acquire' certain information from the Order, and remove all traces of it from their systems.'
That, at last, got a reaction--a raised eyebrow from the Spider in the Web. 'You know I am no longer with the Order...in fact, they are under instruction to execute me if I ever return.'
'I'd heard. But I thought you'd enjoy the challenge.' Wyatt's smirk--which had, in the past, reduced lesser men to fits of rage--had little effect on Alexandra Pierce. The corner of her mouth twitched slightly, but that was all.
But it was something.
'There is one other issue here, Wyatt,' she replied. 'I am sure you can think of many reasons why I should help you...but I highly doubt you can find one that will convince me.'
Wyatt smiled as he reached into his inside pocket. As he did, he saw Cecilia tense up a little, in case there was a need for intervention. Slowly, Connors removed his hand, which was now holding a folded piece of paper. He tossed it across the table to Pierce, who quietly opened it.
'Save you a bit of trouble,' he said as she scanned the words. 'That's a record of payments made to known extortionists, blackmailers, and assassins. In other companies, they call it the monthly payroll.'
Alex frowned slightly. 'This is from five years ago. The day you betrayed me--'
'--betrayed us--' Cecilia interjected, before she was silenced by a quick glance from Pierce. The two women had not always been on the same side; in fact, they'd spent several years in direct opposition, which was how Connors got the evidence in the first place.'
'--and then disappeared,' Pierce finished.
'There's more where that came from,' Connors said. He smiled widely, but secretly he cursed himself--that was supposed to be his trump card, and instead he had to use it as bait. 'Enough to put you in a concrete box for several lifetimes. By the time your sentence would end--well beyond your death--nobody in the world would fear or even remember the name 'Desade.'' He leaned forward, propping himself up against the table...but staying just out of arms' reach. 'And you can have it all back.'
There it was. It was only for a second, but he saw it. Something he never thought he'd see on the face of Alexandra Pierce. Actual, genuine surprise.
Connors pressed the attack. 'Every single piece of incriminating evidence I have against you. All the files, logs, recordings, carbons...everything I took from you. Everything I could conceivably use against you. All. Yours.'
'What about the money you stole? And the stocks of our company?'
'No can do, Alex. Those are just as far out of my hands as they are yours. You might as well ask me for a return on the two years you spent in the asylum.'
Alex scowled again--another sore subject--but pressed on. 'And what about the photographs?'
'I said 'incriminating,' Alex. Nothing illegal about what you two were doing. Not unless you were doing it in Texas, and you weren't.'
Her eyes narrowed. 'The pictures are part of the deal, or there is no deal. Either that, or maybe I will ask you for those two years back.'
'Damn it.' Connors expected this--the pictures came up at the beginning of the conversation, so they weren't likely to be far from her mind when the deal was struck. 'Fine. I don't have them right now--they're safe, don't worry--but I can get them to you. On completion of the job.'
'Naturally.'
'And of course, I expect full non-disclosure to outside parties. Speak a word of what you see in those files, and all bets are off.'
'I expect the same courtesy.'
Connors nodded. The exchange wasn't going well for him, but he was still getting what he needed. He barely managed to stifle a sigh of relief; the deal wasn't done yet.
As Wyatt was thinking, so was Alex. 'I am a bit surprised, Wyatt. I had an idea of what you wanted, but I didn't think you'd offer this much in exchange. Why would you give it all up?'
There, after all the discussion, was the one question he hoped she wouldn't ask. Because while he still had the ability to lie...he no longer had the strength.
'I'm tired.'
Connors had been operating without any sense of stability for years...and finally, it all caught up to him. He seemed to age ten years in the span of five seconds.
'I just can't do this anymore, Alex. I've had enough of constantly looking over my shoulder. I'd like to have a meal without checking to see if it's poisoned, or automatically assuming that it is. I want to go to sleep and merely hope that I will wake up in the morning. I'm tired of hiding, I'm tired of being afraid, but mostly? I'm just...tired.'
'Some say you reap what you sow,' the Medusa said.
'Hell with them. I just know that I don't want to fight with you anymore. Anyone else, I can handle...even Shaw. But you...you're too much. You're too big.' The cracks in Wyatt's facade, which had been visible to trained eyes for some time, were now coming apart completely. 'I've tried holding a sword over your head for a long time, but I can't do it any longer...and I'm hoping that by setting it aside, you'll do the same.'
'What do you want? A full cessation of hostilities? Amnesty, perhaps?'
'Certainly not. And not a full cessation. Just away from the cameras. Each of us can forget the other exists, which I'm sure we'd both prefer. In the ring, of course, we can still try to pull each other's heads off like civilized human beings.'
Alex nodded curtly, and stood. Cecilia did the same...and once he snapped himself out of his depression, Connors did the same.
'Do we have a deal, then?' he asked.
'Of course not,' she answered. 'Even the greatest fools know better than to make a deal with you. But I would say we have...an understanding. Forgive me if I don't shake your hand.'
Wyatt said, 'Of course,' and watched the others leave. As the door shut, he sank back into his chair.
He'd lost a lot that day. Far more than Alex was giving in exchange, and certainly more than he'd wanted to offer. But he smiled anyway.
Because he still won.
# # #
June 12, 2010. 10:32 pm.
Chicago, Illinois.
In the offices of R.W. Chandler, moonlight shined through the window. This was strange enough, as the person who rented that office always kept the blinds closed.
But not tonight. Instead, Mr. Chandler (or 'Wise Guy' Wyatt Connors, as some of you know him) sat at his desk, staring out into the night sky.
'I could leave,' he said to no one in particular. Connors had made the flight to Chicago alone; Deacon Dale and T.J. Ratigan were still in Amherst, preparing for the next Temptation. Not that they'd have much to do, of course, but Wyatt left them behind anyway, citing personal matters.
Private matters.
Wyatt loosened his tie in the face of the sultry evening. It was true enough, there was no real reason for him to stay where he was. He had full confidence that Alexandra would succeed, and if her desire to reform was even slightly sincere, he did not have to worry about the Order's information being used against him. In fact, he could safely vanish now All he had to do was leave a line of communication open for when Alex finished the job.
SCCW would pitch a fit, of course. With Lane Stevens' injury, they'd be throwing the title open, and Connors himself would probably figure into their plans. So what? Connors had never given a damn about titles, except to take them away from people whose lives revolved around them. But that was merely an amusing pastime, not something that could hold his interest. In truth, there had been very little to hold his interest lately. He hadn't thought of any big plans or schemes lately. Maybe it was the near-paralyzing fear he'd been dealing with the past few months; that was bound to be a distraction. But that was starting to lift, leaving him...bored, really. Like there was nothing left to accomplish.
Maybe he could finally disappear. Sure, he'd be in breach of contract, but what could SCCW do? They'd never be able to find him. The only person good enough to track him down would be Alex, and she wasn't likely to bother. At long last, he'd be safe. He'd be free.
Wyatt opened the bottom right drawer of his desk and pulled out a bottle of twelve-year-old scotch. He'd purchased it that afternoon, shortly after his flight landed, and had a drink before pursuing other matters. He'd left the rest of the bottle in his desk, unattended, for several hours. There once was a time when he would have discarded the rest of the bottle, believing that someone had snuck in and poisoned it. Now, he poured another glass.
His thoughts turned briefly to some unfinished business, but Connors was not troubled. He'd left scores of loose ends in his wake, and hadn't ever worried about them. He and Dirk Hogan had conspired to monopolize the main event picture in Phoenix, but as soon as the National Wrestling Council restructured, Connors pretended Hogan didn't exist. After the fall of the NWC, he'd tried to get his client David McBride--Cinder Burn, to his fans--back into singles wrestling; that never materialized either. About the same time, he'd stopped pulling his weight with the Illuminati...and then, when Rat Sicarii recruited him to help bring down Desade, he'd screwed her over and then bolted...on multiple occasions. In fact, Connors might have done more wrong by Sicarii than by Pierce. Wyatt never did understand why Cecilia didn't just shank him or something, but he never asked. Then there was his most blatant abandonment, when he walked away from the World Wrestling Alliance. He had led Deacon Dale and T.J. Ratigan to their greatest--and only--success, the WWA World Tag Team Titles. Right before their fifth defense, he'd accepted an offer from WWA President Victor Mandrake: in exchange for a ridiculous sum of money, he would leave and never return. The fall from grace suffered by Dale and Ratigan was so quick and brutal that, years later, they willingly came back when Connors offered them work.
Surely they'd understand why he was leaving, if he told them. But of course he wouldn't...and didn't particularly care if they understood, either. It was their own fault, being dumb enough to come back.
Wyatt Connors lifted the glass and stared a moment into the amber liquid, then brought it to his lips and took a sip. He rolled the scotch around his tongue, savoring first the taste, and then the burn in his throat as he swallowed. He smiled. It felt as if he were drinking true freedom, a kind that healed the wounds and cured the ills of a lifetime of deceit, dishonesty, and attacks with blunt objects.
He picked up the bottle again, then returned it to its drawer. As he did, he spotted something down there...a piece of paper. Must have been underneath the bottle, he thought, and lifted it out of the drawer as he set the scotch back in.
Connors held the sheet beneath the lamp on his desk and scanned his eyes over it. There were a series of names on it, one of which had been crossed out. What the hell does this mean? And why did I cross out her name?
Then he remembered.
This was the List. This was why he stayed.
It all happened shortly after he'd escaped from the thrall of Reverend Ibrahim Seck and the Decency Crusade. His old friend Harley Roebuck had asked if he was done with wrestling, but Connors still had something to do. The One Big Thing.
As he read the names on the list, he tried to remember what went wrong. It must have been while he was Universal Champion...he'd gotten distracted, lost interest...maybe just forgot about it. And then things started to fall apart.
It's not important anymore, he told himself. It's too late anyway--two of these guys aren't even around anymore. Yet he couldn't take his eyes off it. It gnawed at him...it felt like he'd failed, and his failure was staring him straight in the face. Laughing. Taunting.
'No.'
He crumpled up the paper and threw it on the floor. 'I'm free now,' he said, once again to an imaginary observer. 'I don't have to stay. I don't have to do that, or anything else.'
Wyatt Connors was a great liar. His talent for sewing confusion and obfuscation was virtually unmatched. But he knew as walked around the desk to retrieve the crumpled paper...sometimes, you just can't lie to yourself.
'But...what if I wanted to...'
The Scorpion smoothed out the list and read the names again. To his surprise, a lot of things fell into place quite easily. 'He'll be tough to work in,' he muttered at one name, but another--fourth on the list--caused a wide grin to spread across his face. 'This one. He's the key.'
If everything worked, it would be the most fantastic scheme he'd been a part of. Better than the World Title job, even better than the Takeover. The Greatest Story Ever Sold.
He sat back down at his desk, opened the central drawer, and pulled out a small recorder.
If you could have seen him that night, grinning madly in the moonlight, ranting a mile a minute in an otherwise empty room...you might have been scared.
And if you were one of the names on the list, then you were going to be sorry.
'Note Seventy-Eight,' he began.
# # #
So it was that Wyatt Connors broke his last rule...which, oddly enough, was his very first one.
'There will come a day when you can get away clean. It doesn't matter if there's one big scam you can still pull off, or if you've got loose ends to tie up--those aren't important. What counts is making sure nobody can follow you.'
'When that day comes, there's only one thing you absolutely need to do.'
'Run.'