"You...  You want me to pay you off?"

Taylor shuddered at the sound of his own voice coming from the TV in front of him.  He kept his eyes closed, not in the slightest looking forward to how much of the video was about to be shown.  He felt prone.  Exposed.

"Sí.  Do this and you won't hear from me again.  It all goes away before it'll have had the chance to start.", came Ramon Amador's husky, hoarse reply through Taylor's high quality speakers.  Taylor felt sick to his stomach that this was being aired on GZW Television as a form of entertainment.  After a short pause, Ramon went on, each progressive word a subtle dagger placed deep into his prone and exposed spine.  "I'm not asking for much...  Considerably less than what I'd get in court, actually."

Another brief pause ensued.  At the time, Taylor hadn't realised quite how many there were.  It had been an awkward conversation, but he couldn't believe he hadn't seen through Ramon's sloppy mask.

"I'm not trying to ruin you, Juan.  I'm just looking to get what's coming to me.  I'm offering you a way out, friend.  Please, take it", Taylor heard Ramon lie.  More silence.

Taylor knew what he was going to say ten seconds before the low quality recording of himself said it; "What use is the money to you in here, anyway?  As squalid a place as this is, security seems tight.  They'd be on to you straight away."  Why had he been so quick to jump in with that?  Surely it was then that allowed Ramon get his foot in the door for what was to come.

"No, no.  You're missing the beauty of it.  I'm asking you for two million US Dollars.  Cash.  But I've already got a guy lined up on the outside to deliver it to me in monthly instalments.  It'll be more than enough to keep me sane for the next five years in this hellhole.  What do you say, Juan?"

Taylor recalled not being able to muster up any words at all.  He sat in silence, a million excuses to get away running through his head at once.  His apparently fictitious heart sank as soon as he heard himself utter his few words; "This guy, then.  Give me the specifics..."

Only then did Taylor open his eyes, hoping that the clip being shown was simply a rerun of the earlier airing.  It was not.  Ramon, his face scarred and scuzzy, simply smiled and began to tell Taylor about his guy on the outside.

"The guy...", he began, "...name's Sharrock.  English dude.  Does small time jobs here and there, but he's more or less out of work...  Got fired by his boss for fucking up a coke run.  He'd be in here if not for some persuasion of certain prison officials by yours truly..."

"...So he owes you."

"Sí, Juan.  Big time.  Like you."

Even then, more than two weeks after the actual conversation, that line made Taylor feel like wringing Ramon's neck.  What got to him the most was the underlying confidence that clearly began to build within Ramon as time had gone on.  He slapped himself in the mouth for not picking that up when face to face with the man himself.

"So, listen...  This's how it'll work.  You leave here this afternoon.  On your way back to the airport, you'll pick up a tail.  That'll be Sharrock.  Ignore him.  He'll come to you when he's convinced it's a no-risk deal.  You do what he tells you.  He'll ask for the money in monthly installments, payable into the new bank account in your name that you'll be setting up promptly once you get back to the States.  Agreed?"

Taylor watched himself on the screen fall completely silent.  He begged and pleaded with his on-screen self not to agree.  Stall him.  Come up with something else.  Anything else.  Don't agree.  Disagree.  Disagree.

"...Agreed."

Taylor could've broken the TV with his fist after seeing his momentarily lapse of reason.  All the worse was it that what he'd just saw had also just been enjoyed in millions of homes around the country.  More top quality GZW programming.

"You're a good man, Juan.  I won't forget this, amigo", bullshitted Ramon, practically adding insult to injury.  Taylor had said nothing at the time.  Watching over the conversation in hindsight, though, there was so much he would've loved to say to the scumbag who he'd recently made two million dollars richer.  And for what?  The fucking piece of shit didn't deserve one red cent.  He should've fucking killed him when he had the chance back in MCWO.  It should've been quick and painful.  It would've been quick and painful. 

"Amigo, when I get out, I'm coming to visit you."

With every succesive word that came from Ramon's mouth, Taylor recalled that his heart had seemed to turn just a little blacker.

"The money I'll have by then, I'll get a nice house out in Atlanta...  Look into getting back in shape, working out...  Maybe you'll even put a good word in for me at GCW..."

Taylor had continued to care less and less about the odd prisoner on the far side of the glass partition.  He'd began to drown him out.  He hadn't even bothered correcting him about GZW's name.  He'd begun to examine the glass not two inches in front of him.  It looked cheap.  Shoddy.  Ramon had been saying something, but Taylor hadn't caught it.  Even now, watching it on the TV in front of him, he didn't bother listening.  Ramon Amador was all but dead to John Taylor, which is why Ramon's next words startled him as if he were seeing a ghost for the second time; "Muchos gracias, amigo.  For all of this.  You know I wouldn't want to take you to court...  I don't want to drag my old friend through the mud.  I wouldn't sell you down the river if my life depended on it."

Motherfucker.

With that, Taylor had snapped.  From the uneasy comfort of his couch, he watched as, clear as day, the camera picked him up pulling back his arm and...

[SSSMMASSSSSSSSSHHH!!!]

Shards of broken glass flew everywhere as Taylor, having had enough of Ramon, brought his fist straight through the shoddy glass partition and directly into Ramon's face.  Ramon, hoarse and direly unfit, howled in agony like a strangled cat as the impact sent him flying backwards, out of his wheelchair and sprawled out onto the hard concrete floor with a hard thud.  Blood pouring from his wrist, Taylor had almost felt compassion as he stood up out of his seat and surveyed the damage.  A crowd of prisoners on the prisoners' side had assembled around him as the video cut out.  A rerun of a Seven promo was aired but Taylor simply turned off the television.

He wished.

"Juan, are you even listening to me?"

What?  Taylor'd dozed off.  He'd looked up at Ramon and said, abruptly; "No, I wasn't, Ramon."

Ramon was clearly offended, but hadn't said anything.

"I'm going to the airport.  If Sharrock finds me, he finds me.  If he doesn't, he doesn't.  Either way works for me.  Ramon, I'd appreciate it if we left it at that.  The next thing I want to hear from you is that you're dead.  Until then, keep to yourself."

"Sí.  OK, amigo.  I thank you a thousand times.  You won't hear another word from me as long as you live."

Taylor hadn't bothered to reply, opting to just get up and walk out.  It was about then that the video feed cut out and a commercial for Crimson's "At Our Best" aired.  Taylor switched it off, wishing that he'd done things differently.  What had been caught on camera wasn't illegal, per se, but Taylor knew it could really defame the character of the Lone Gunman.  At the very least.  It could've been worse.  Taylor knew that.  The meeting with Sharrock could've been taped.

...And what if it was?

He picked up the phone and got in touch with his lawyer, Larry Collins.  Those monthly payments would have to stop before they started, too.

"Larry...  John."  Taylor was abrupt and to the point.

"John Taylor, what can I do for you?", came Collins' sharp reply.

"Did you see it?"

"See what?"

"It...  The conclusion of the prison tape.  Bastards leaked it to GZW TV."

"You serious?"

"What do you think?"

"Right.  So that's the last of the footage?"

"I hope so..."

"Hope?"

"Yeah...  There was a meeting with Amador's guy on the outside - Sharrock."

"Sharrock."

"Yeah...  British.  Lowlife, wannabe ganglord.  I doubt he's clued in to the video situation, but if he was..."

"What?"

"The stuff with the bank account we discussed...  That'd hardly be above board, right?"

"Right."

"Well let's just say, hypothetically, that the Entity or wh-" Taylor stopped, realising his mistake instantly.

"The...  Entity...?"

Taylor felt a cold sweat break out on his forehead.  He mumbled slightly.  "Nevermind...  GZW stuff.  But this surely goes above and beyond all of that?"

"I don't know...  It could.  How're you for time?"

"Time?  Why?"

"I hate to say it, but I think a second trip to Mexico might be necessary.  Sooner rather than later."

Taylor sighed.  "Haven't you any contacts or anything down there?  I've got a big show coming up in two days.  At this stage, I don't know if I can give up any extra time."

"I see", Larry replied.  He too sighed.

The Entity fucking everything up again, Taylor conspired to himself. 

"Either way, John, I'd rather see you in person than talking over the phone.  Can you get over here in the next hour?"

"Larry...  No.  This isn't just another show or just another night...  This is Crimson's "At Our Best"...  This is my chance to solidfy myself as a Record Breaker in GZW, as the only World Heavyweight Champ-"

Larry cut Taylor off; "That's fantastic, John, really.  But I'll leave that end of things up to you.  I'll see what I can dig up on this Sharrock character.  I'll be in touch."

"At least we're on the same page.  The show must go on, Larry.  The show must go on."

Taylor hung up without saying another word and got up immediately, determined not to let the situation get the better of him.  The worst of it was over.  He'd deal with it after Crimson.