Fist First

by Nigel Mustard

  =-=-=-=-=-=

  In the gas station, buying coffee and donuts for breakfast, Janney and Chloe read the edition with tears in their eyes. They looked up at Stoker. The attendant looked at the paper, then at Stoker, then back at the paper, then back at Stoker. He was matching the photo on the front cover with the gigantic man in front of him.

  =-=-=-=-=-=

  At the airport, Johnny Spang karate chopped the oakwood desk in front of him into two perfect halves as he read about the death of Crawford, his ticket to the keys of the lock of the gate of the city of New York. He screamed for his henchmen, who tumbled in giggling and stroking each other’s faces. They stopped when they saw the face of Spang, as angry as Mount Fuji with pre-menstrual tension.

  =-=-=-=-=-=

  Stoker backed out of the gas station slowly. He whispered to Janney.

  ‘I gotta disappear kid - clear my name. Everyone in New York will be after my butt when they read this headline. Starting with him.’ He pointed at the fat man behind the desk who was trying to calmly dial the cops without raising attention. Janney pulled the phone from the wall and tied up the attendant tenderly with the cord.

  =-=-=-=-=-=

  Lowenstein held his copy of the paper in his hand (where else would he hold it?) and drove frantically through the morning rush hour. He had to get to both Spang and Magnelli within a couple of hours. The plan had derailed. He needed to control it.

  =-=-=-=-=-=

  Stoker ran to the Chevy and stuck the keys in the ignition. He twisted it with ease – it wasn’t stiff and started in the normal way. Engine noises began to say mechanical words. He did all the other things a man needs to do to start a car and drove off.

  The final game had begun.

  Chapter 37

  Stoker pulled over outside a diner on the outskirts of Brooklyn. He sure as hell wasn’t going to leave New York – not yet anyway. He had a job to do, and that job’s name was revenge.

  Brutal, bloody revenge.

  But Stoker wasn’t stupid. His flat would be surrounded by cops by now, and it was no good heading down to the station to try to clear his name. His damn gun had been used to kill the Mayor – the cops would just lock him up and throw away the key. What a devastating critique of the American penile system.

  How the hell did they get hold of his gun? It had been locked up under lock and key in his locker for near ten years. Stoker had never felt the need for a gun. He had two damn deadly weapons in the lumps of finger, nail, muscle, bone and skin at the end of each of his arms.

  His fists.

  It must have been an inside job. Somebody at the station was working for Magnelli. That was no damn surprise – Magnelli had been paying off cops for years. But this was a bold play – only a cop at the top of the cop shop would even have access to spare locker keys.

  Stoker’s nubile mind agilely flicked through potential suspects.

  He demonstrated fierce intelligence by immediately narrowing it down to Clarence Von Klatt. Stoker had suspected he was on Magnelli’s payroll for years. Von Klatt was touted by some as the next Police Chief of the City. All the clues stacked up.

  But Stoker couldn’t prove any of this.

  Anyway, his only priority at the moment was to kill Spang and Magnelli – then he would worry about clearing his damn name.

  Stoker was selflessly ignoring his own self-preservation and instead concentrating on the greater good of the city.

  He needed to get his ear close to the ground again – close enough to hear exactly what Magnelli’s next move was.

  He needed an informant. But Rooster was dead.

  ‘Dead, Dammit, DEAD’, shouted Stoker, as he fisted the car hood with his punches.

  No time for tears, Frank.

  He formulated a plan to dissolve into the seedy underbelly of the city. He would become a ghost.

  And it was time to haunt Thomas Magnelli.

  Chapter 38

  Just less than 12 hours had passed since Magnelli had left the Bronco Roadhouse. In fact, it was so close to 12 hours, that it is hardly worth using the words ‘just less than’. It was, to all intents and purposes, 12 hours later.

  Magnelli exited his buff-shine-polished Lamborghini-car and strode back into the Roadhouse that he had left nearly 12 hours ago. He walked in like he owned the place.

  Well guess what? He did.

  Magnelli had bought the Roadhouse over five years ago. At the time it had been a den of filth and squalor. And now, after five years of Magnelli’s ownership, it was even damn worse. He initially used it to launder money, but like a lot of his investments, he discovered that he could make a lot more profit by milking the teat for everything it was worth. And Magnelli suckled every teat dry – until the sweet milk stopped pumping.

  He sensed a huge amount of potential milk was stored at the Roadhouse, and he just had to suckle correctly.

  He knew that Lenny Thunder was worshipped there – he was the only Biker who had respect from the Goths and the Mods. Sure, the Punks hated him, but they would still do what he said.

  It was like playing volleyball in a team of snakes against a team of rapists with a live grenade as the ball. You had to be cruel and manipulative. Magnelli checked both those damn boxes.

  Combining the numerous gangs who hung out at the Bronco Roadhouse would prove to be Magnelli’s masterstroke, and he knew it.

  Lenny Thunder met him at the door with a hug, which was clearly inappropriate. There was an awkward silence as both men looked away and then at the floor for a few moments.

  Magnelli sniffed and shuffled past Thunder into the main bar area, but on the way past their chests touched which only served to prolong the awkward silence.

  Thunder went to apologise:

  ‘Mr Magnelli, sir, I just want to say…’

  Magnelli silenced the biker by putting his finger on his warm lips.

  Thunder recoiled – this was recognised by both men as an odd gesture. Both men now felt completely ill at ease. It really had been far from a smooth entrance into the Roadhouse.

  Regardless, this was all soon forgotten as Magnelli bore witness to the army before him.

  Fifteen punks with ripped leather jackets and faded blue jeans leaned against the near wall. Their spiked Mohican haircuts seemed to scream how alienated they were from normal society.

  ‘Good.’ Thought Magnelli. ‘I don’t want civilians.’

  Next to them slouched maybe a dozen Goths. They lay back over a couple of sofas and polished their ebony sickles and black steel switchblades. The logos on their faded t-shirts told you everything you needed to know. ‘Marilyn Manson’. ‘Wings’. And plenty of other satanic bands… too numerous to mention.

  ‘Excellent.’ Thought Magnelli. ‘Devil worshippers unite.’

  Mods from Liverpool, England, with mop-top crops and bobby’s truncheons revved the engines of their Lambretta mopeds and whistled at Magnelli when he walked pas.

  ‘Cor Blimey mate, we gonna do these idiots or what like?’

  Magnelli just smiled – he knew he could rely on people who had stolen truncheons from the British Police.

  He kept walking, past the Ravers with their tie-dyed clothes, the Goonies with their short necks and affected limps, the wild eyed Zappers, the cool-rockin’ Papas, and finally the Bikers.

  Twelve large men sat astride ‘hogs’ (what bikers aggravatingly name their motorcycles) and sucked aggressively on six inch rolls of Cuban cigar. They each had tattoos and beards, which proved they were tough. Thunder walked down the line of his own crew and patted each on the head.

  Magnelli had completed a full circle of the bar and turned back to look at the whole room.

  Thunder walked up beside him, putting an arm over his shoulder.

  ‘Well, Mr Magnelli, how have I done? You got enough of a damn army here to do what you need to?’

  Magnelli sneered. ‘You’re a blunt instrument, Thunder, but damn if you ain’t effective. How have you managed to get this rabble together
?’

  Thunder laughed. ‘Well, Mr Magnelli, I can be most…’ He cracked the knuckles of his hands. ‘…persuasive. And if there’s one thing that this particular rabble loves to do, it’s racistly killing immigrants and butchering meddling policepersons.’

  Magnelli laughed back at Thunder, running a hand through his short cropped grey hair.

  There must be well over a hundred bodies here – enough to send that uppity chink all the way back to China – in a body bag if Magnelli would have his way.

  And more than enough to take down Frank Stoker, who was proving a most dangerous adversary. But not even Stoker could touch Magnelli when he was surrounded by a hundred heads.

  Could he?

  Chapter 39

  New York Library is the biggest freestanding building in North America. It houses nearly ten percent (10%) of the world’s books.

  That’s a lotta paper, whichever way you look at it. No matter how cynical or childish you are… you have to admit that is a lot of paper.

  It was built in 1800, by a Masonic Society funded by Jewish money on the instruction of the corrupt French President at the time.

  The books inside range from fiction books to nonfiction books. Books about military history and indeed just normal history adorn the shelves, next to books about books, and books about books about books.

  Of course, Michael Janney didn’t know much about reading, nor did he care too. This was the first time he had been in a library since he had heavy petted (and then probed) one of his ex-girlfriends in his college library after a frat party.

  Janney was here on a mission.

  A mission to clear the damn name of Frank Stoker.

  He coolly walked through the main atrium of the library. Sunlight poured in through the stained glass windows and shimmered off his hair in a scene that would look spectacular on the big screen.

  He held Chloe by the hand and led her to the Public Services research section.

  He found a spare desk and began rooting through boxes of microfiche: the Police Training records. After couple of hours, he found what he was looking for.

  STOKER, FRANK W.

  ACADEMY FIREARMS TRAINING RECORD

  Turns out that even at the tender age of nineteen, Stoker had been a walking, talking one-eyed dick. His record was exemplary – in his final round he hadn’t missed the target once and had indeed broken all academy records.

  Complimentary comments from the grizzled instructor littered the pages.

  ‘A good shooter.’

  ‘Rarely misses the target.’

  ‘Good shooting.’

  ‘BANG. Another paper target molested.’

  ‘Good.’

  If he had been at the damn carnival on one of those damn shooting ranges, Stoker would have walked away with the biggest teddy bear of them all. It’s doubtful that he would have had a nagging wife complaining of having sore feet with him either.

  Some guy, that Frank Stoker.

  Chloe frowned as her lips pushed out words which fell together in the following sequence: ‘But what does this prove, honey? Why are we here?’

  She cocked her head and put one hand on her slim hip.

  ‘Does the murder of your father look like the work of someone who never missed his target? There were bullet holes everywhere. Stoker simply wouldn’t have needed more than one bullet – and this record goes some way to prove that. I just need to get this to the acting Police Chief. Should be enough to get Frank off the damn most wanted list at least.’

  He leant back in his chair for a well-earned break.

  He chewed on a stick of American gum, which was fast becoming his trademark. He chewed noiselessly, refusing to open his mouth and project lip smacking sounds.

  He thought aloud, by verbalising his thoughts vocally with his mouthpiece:

  ‘But maybe this isn’t enough. I need something else. Think, dammit Janney, think.’

  He turned to look at Chloe. She was so sweet, and so innocent. When she had heard the news of her father being brutally murdered less than twelve hours ago, she had been distraught. But, through devoted coaching by Janney, she had come to realise that the death of her father was probably a good thing overall, as he was a ‘Real God Damn Piece Of Shit’, in the words of Janney.

  Though they were harsh words, Janney had spoken them softly. It hadn’t taken long to bring Chloe round to his way of thinking and by the morning she had seemed to forget all about it.

  He realised he had fallen completely in love with her, and he thought she loved him too.

  This had become more than just a quest for revenge on Crawford, or to help Stoker. He now had to protect Chloe from whatever Magnelli or Spang could throw at her.

  She’d be on both of their hit lists, that’s for sure.

  To them, she was a loose end which needed to be tied up.

  To Janney, she was more than just a piece of ass. She was the piece of ass he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. And he wasn’t going to let anybody get in the way of that.

  She saw him looking, and blushed, before idly spouting:

  ‘Anyway – would Frank even use a gun? I never heard him talk about weapons, and he always seems to resolve problems so effectively with his fists…’

  Janney sprang to his feet. He had developed a moderate erection earlier whilst looking at Chloe, and as he stood up he had a significant bulge around his private parts.

  Chloe was humming to herself and didn’t notice.

  A medium-sized man on the opposite side of the desk looked on with the gay abandon of a gayman in liberal times. It was no longer taboo to interrogate another man’s penis with your eyes – those times were long, long gone – and the man (who was gay) had a really good, long, long, hard look.

  Janney smiled at him charmingly.

  ‘Sorry buddy, I’m straight down the line, like an arrow.’

  The gayman laughed, not in the effeminate way, but with a normal laugh, perhaps challenging your preconceptions. He did, however, have a slight lisp.

  ‘No worrieth, honey. You can’t blame a boy for trying!’

  Janney laughed and high fived the gayman, which was absolutely fine, capping off the challenging but progressive scene.

  Anyway – Janney ran towards Chloe and rubbed her head, around the crown in a circular fashion.

  ‘By god, babe – you’ve cracked it!’

  Chloe hopped off the table she had been leaning on instantly.

  ‘Oh goodness, I was only leaning against it gently… don’t tell the librarian.’

  Hilariously, Chloe had thought Janney had been talking about cracking the table! This was a very funny sequence and as you can imagine, laughs rang out around the library, just like at the circus – one of those good circuses, not one of the ones where they basically torture the animals.

  Anyway – to avoid further digression and to get to the crux of the next important part of the story – Janney spoke:

  ‘Not the table babe. You’ve cracked the problem – of course Stoker wouldn’t have shot your father in the face and blown all of his brains to bloody smithereens all over the inside of his car. He would have killed him with his fists – just the same way he has killed criminals – all of whom undoubtedly deserved it – across the city for the past twenty years.’

  Janney clapped his hands like an intelligent seal.

  ‘By god, if I can just get some evidence of his arrest records, I can prove that he hasn’t fired a gun on duty. That, coupled with the fact that he is a crackshot and wouldn’t miss even if he did use his gun – that just might be enough to get him off the hook.’

  Chloe smiled, nicely.

  Janney continued talking.

  ‘But where the hell are the arrest records? The microfiche records end twenty three years ago, and would only cover Frank’s first year as a cop. They must be stored somewhere else.’

  All of a sudden a tall, thin man with a dusty beard and a mortarboard on his head tapped Janney on the shoulder.
>
  ‘Good day. My name is Professor Lord Reginald Jenkins-Thwaites, English scholar and Chief Librarian. I do believe you are looking for the electronic records section. I’m from England, by the way.’

  ‘Electronic records?’ Replied Janney and Chloe, in unison.

  ‘Why, yes.’ He spoke very slowly, like one of those trees in Lord of the Rings. ‘Twenty three years ago, the City of New York decided to electrify all its public records. This means that data that previously would have been held on microfiche is now stored on a computer. Fascinatingly – all the microfiche records you see before you...’ He said, pointing at the five boxes of records Janney had been investigating ‘… all those boxes can be stored on just two or three computer hard drives, and accessed with a flick of a button or a crank of a key. Come along, I’ll show you.’

  Janney rolled his eyes and followed the professor to the adjoining (next door) room. A row of bone white PCs faced them. Each one was being manhandled by a spotty, sexless nerd either playing a video game or researching for a meaningless college degree.

  Janney found the only spare screenview and sat down. The Professor leaned over him eccentrically, breath smelling of eucalyptus and his coat smelling of old people, typed in his credentials, and was met with a black screen. He typed in:

  OPEN POLICE RECORDS.

  The computer responded, arrogantly beeping and displaying the below in vile monochrome:

  OPEN POLICE RECORDS? ARE YOU SURE Y/N

  The professor keyed the Y key abruptly and the machine whirred. Less than thirty seconds later, the screen changed and a new prompt appeared.

  TYPE NAME OF POLICEPERSON WHOSE RECORDS YOU WANT TO DISPLAY

  Janney took over. He typed in ‘Frank Stoker’, easily hitting the right keys with his fingerends to spell it correctly first time.

  The machine beeped and whirred for nearly a minute, before printing out a seemingly endless list on that paper with those holes perforating both sides. Eventually the printer ceased its ejaculation and the printing was complete.

  Janney turned round to thank the professor – but, mysteriously, he had disappeared into thin air!