Page 87 of Mean Machine

Before Brooklyn could say anything, Cash finished his call and came towards them with his uneven, wobbling gait. There was no smile, no greeting, and Brooklyn wondered what was wrong, but then noted that grey tinge to Cash’s face. “Cash, what’s up? Do you need to sit down?”

Cash shook himself and then cracked a smile, but it lacked most of its usual spark and brightness. “How’s the eye? You look… well, you’ve looked better.”

“Well, a big man hit me a lot.” Brooklyn reached out and touched Cash on the shoulder. “What’s going on? You look like you’ve seen a whole room full of ghosts.”

Cash turned towards him. “I’m just off the phone with Ultimate Prime Time Fight Nights… that’s apparently a TV channel over here, and they loved the fight. They want the rights to your next fights, US rights first, but they’re also talking global.” Cash stared at him. “They’re talking very serious money, Brook. They want three fights and are willing to offer ‘at least’ a hundred million for them.”

“Is that pounds or real money?” Joseph asked.

“It’s dollars. Some of that is an advance on the pay-per-view. The Thorne fight made serious bank, and people love Brook.” Cash exhaled and deflated around the shoulders. “Now, Iron Mike was said to get three hundred million for five fights, but this isn’t the heydays of boxing anymore. The pay-per-view, if it earns back, if that goes global, that’s worth at least that much, but this is pretty safe money.”

“Okay, let’s do it,” Brooklyn said.

“There’s a condition that you need to get cleared medically, because that injury has people spooked.”

“Then let’s get the clearance.” Brooklyn bounced on his feet. “That’s the big payday, Cash. Aren’t you excited?”

Cash turned around and grabbed Brooklyn by the arms, looking up to him with nothing but sincerity. “Brook, that’s… this is out of my league. It’s just more zeroes than I’ve ever handled before.”

“Then pretend two of those zeroes aren’t even there.” Brooklyn grinned, more amused at Cash’s obvious nervousness than shocked at the number. Maybe because it was the kind of number you only ever really read about in the papers. “Get a lawyer to help. They pay that kind of money, I’ll fight whenever, whoever.”

“Right.” Cash tried to collect himself. “I’ll make some enquiries, ask some people, get a bunch of lawyers on it. There’s got to be people with that expertise.”

Joseph huffed. “Meanwhile, we have all kinds of offers rolling in for sponsorship. That should be worth a few million here and there. Brook can get his own line of clothes too. Gumshields, the works.”

“Great, happy to look at it.”

Joseph glanced at Cash. “There’s some work to do on that. Want me to help? I’m not the smoothest talker.”

“You trained a unified world heavyweight champ, Joseph. They’ll deal with your personality,” Cash said, some of his old sparkle coming back.

“Damn right.” Joseph nodded to Brooklyn. “We’ll handle this. That part is all business.”

“Yeah. I trust you. I’ll get cleared, I’ll fight.” Brooklyn grinned. “Speaking of business, though, Cash, can you make sure Nathaniel gets paid back as soon as possible?”

“Sure. He’ll have to let me know how much money we owe him. He’s never so much as made a sound.”

“I’ll let him know there’s money in the kitty now to pay him back.” And then some. “Also, get the team together tonight. We’ll have a proper victory party. And, I don’t know, some kind of bonus for everybody? I want everyone paid and happy.”

Cash grinned. “I’ll sort something out. We can probably get one of the hotel bars, even at short notice.”

“Great. Let’s do this.”

HE’D ONLYhad one drink—something ridiculous like a kumquat mojito, which ended up packing more of a punch than he’d expected, and it really didn’t play well with the painkillers he was taking, so Brooklyn felt loose and blurred around the edges as well as sleepy, and the noise of the party was simply too much, so he ended up walking out onto the balcony.

It took a comically long time to navigate the small buttons of his phone, but he was too relaxed, or too drunk or legally stoned to get worked up over it. Instead, he found himself focused on the phone like a child trying to work out a toy that was designed for one or two age classes upward. But he finally got there and waited for the call to go through.

“Brook, is that you? This is Em.”

“Hey, Em. How are you doing?” He leaned on the stone balcony of the hotel and looked up into the cloudy dark skies.

“I’m good. We’re still in camp for Harrison.”

“I know. How’s that going?”

“Ah, you know Santos.” Em huffed into the phone. “We watched your fight. You had to make it interesting, didn’t you?”

“You mean the part where he almost took my head off? Yeah.” They chuckled together. “But at least we had a decisive outcome this time.”

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