Fist First

by Nigel Mustard

  Spang watched on, incredulous. He had been outbowed by a ‘gwai lo’ white man. Quite understandably, this was always interpreted as a tremendously shameful experience for any true Chinaman.

  Spang seethed and his palms spat sweat into his… into his palms.

  But his face remained as cool as a cucumber… yeah dude... real cool man… and he never did so much as blink more than two or three times and jutted his chin out like a self-important crocodile.

  Spang nodded, admitting defeat.

  ‘Magnelli-san. I thank you for coming. I believe our mutual friend Mr Lowenstein brokered this peace so that any idea of escalating violence was quickly put to bed.’

  ‘That’s right. I wanted to look you in the eye, shake your hand, and offer you half of the city.’

  Magnelli spoke with a wry smile and winked at Lowenstein when he finished his sentence.

  ‘I graciously accept your offer. But… I suppose I should say at this point, Mr Magnelli, that I want something else to go with my half of the city...’ Spang removed his diamond studded hat and threw it into the canal with aplomb.

  Magnelli responded. ‘And what might that be, Mr Spang?’

  Spang smiled, his teeth appearing in rows like a dozen tiny men in teeth costumes.

  ‘I want the other half as well.’

  He screamed, long, loud and sharp, which echoed from every hem and seam of the Statue of Liberty’s dress, and made the few remaining tourists sprint into the shadows.

  It was the scream of death.

  And suddenly, the largest lady in New York gave birth to 84 wailing henchmen. They poured, in their alternating white and black suits, from every orifice of the statue - abseiling from her eye and nose holes, leaping from behind her heels, and streaming out of the visitors entrance in the normal way.

  They each carried two small oriental hatchets, (one in each hand, how else?) the blades gleaming in the reflection of the vain moon, which egotistically shone it’s cheese-yellow glow onto all and sundry.

  Magnelli and Lowenstein cast their eyes at the unfolding scene, and shrewdly took a step back towards the railing.

  Spang laughed, his henchmen forming in three rows behind him. They echoed his laugh, like a pack of damn hyenas.

  Slowly, they began to edge towards Magnelli and Lowenstein. The clickety clack of their steel heels squealed a peel of evil as they surrounded the Jew and the Mafiaman.

  ‘Ooh… Mr Magnelli-san… could it be that you are… afraid?’ Spang crowed like the cock that got the cream.

  He continued his advance until his Magnelli could feel his sweet, hot breath on his chin.

  ‘Before I kill you, I want to hear you beg.’ Spang’s eyes had gone evil, and his words were eviler still.

  Magnelli stared back, eyes unmoving. Spang raised his eyebrows. Was this Mafiaman so defiant that he wouldn’t beg even when facing death?

  Magnelli stroked words from the back of his throat.

  ‘You stupid fuck.’

  Spang recoiled in the manner of a suspicious ferret.

  ‘How dare you….’ But his words were halted by the words of Tomasso Xavier Magnelli, the King of New York.

  ‘How dare me? No. How dare YOU! New York is MY DAMN CITY!’

  Magnelli raised his voice and it was really quite scary, as would probably be clearer if this was committed to the silver screen.

  Motorcycle engines purred and revved as the whole island started to shake. Honks horned repeatedly; noise pollution clearly not being high on the list of worries of this lot.

  Spang’s eyes rolled around in his head and he slapped his dry hands onto his wet thighs in despair.

  His henchmen, following their master, spun round and faced the influx of leather clad Bikers, ripped-denim Goths, spaced out Rockers, whacked up Ravers, wool suited Mods and short necked Goonies, all shouting, waving and flexing pale, tattooed biceps. Dozens and dozens appeared, on Harley Davidsons, dirt bikes, quad bikes, push bikes and JCB diggers.

  Dirty fumes poured into the sky as the machinery rolled over the innocent bushes and grasses that lay before them.

  Within a minute, Spang’s goons were themselves surrounded. The surrounders had become the surroundees.

  Spang smiled wildly at Magnelli.

  ‘I say, Magnelli. It appears you’ve played quite the hand.’

  Magnelli smiled and extended his hand. Spang shook it.

  ‘To the death?’ Enquired Spang, politely.

  ‘To the death.’ Replied the lips of Magnelli.

  They both leaned back against the railing and, coupled (tripled?) with Lowenstein, watched the diabolical battle unfold.

  The two armies stood in silence facing each other. Magnelli had more men, about a hundred to Spang’s eighty-four. But Spang’s were better armed and trained in hand to hand combat.

  A small wolf ran across the gap between the two armies, hot mist pouring from the tiny gaps between her teeth. She looked first to her right, then to her left, at both groups of men. She shook her head, wisely, in the way only a beast of nature can, and scarpered into the night. ‘Why do and must man be so badly to another man always?’ She thought, sagely.

  There was a dreadful silence until Lenny Thunder revved the engine on his Harley Davidson ‘hog’ (motorcycle), sucked long and deep on his cigarette, and drove straight into the crowd of Chinese bodyguards at well over the speed limit, swinging his trademark steel chain round his head.

  He killed two of Spang’s goons with his first crashing arc from the chain, and killed another three as his bike ploughed into the crowd.

  The Goonies followed him in, but soon got carved to pieces by a vicious brigade of shamans from Shanghai. They didn’t leave a single Goonie alive, and only lost a couple of their number.

  Thunder, seeing the slaughter of the expendable Goonies, bellowed orders the mods to ride their Vespas in to hold the east flank. They met a wall of Bangkok Battle Boys and were evenly matched in skill and speed.

  The battle raged on around Thunder, as he struck fear into the hearts of the central core of Spang’s bodyguards, maiming or killing with each strike. He was surrounded by Ravers – their brains spun out on narco-cocktails of weed and speed, not even realising when their skins were pierced or sliced by the diabolical henchmen.

  The Goths and Rockers poured into the melee, wielding broken guitars and switchblade knives. They killed as many as they lost, their blue hair and song lyric tattoos swinging wildly in and out of view.

  Within a minute, thirty lay dead on the floor, and the whole area was a writhing ball of smashing fists and jabbing knives. It was impossible to know who was winning, except to say that the Grim Reaper would not go home empty handed on this fair day.

  Still, Magnelli, Spang, and Lowenstein watched on.

  Chapter 47

  They weren’t the only three watching on, however.

  Frank Stoker, six and a half feet tall, covered head to toe in bruises, ribs broken and fists aching, had just arrived to find merry sweet hell damn well breaking loose.

  ‘Hmmph.’ Stoker had made a damn home of hell for years.

  Not long before, he’d landed hard on his front on the concrete outside The Slammer, pulled himself up and jumped onto a swinging ladder from a passing fire truck, coolly hooking his legs up into the rungs.

  He dropped off on the corner of 12th and Buchanan, and calmly stepped onto the 37 bus which, displaying an incisive knowledge of the city transport system, he knew would take him to The Statue of Liberty.

  Thirty minutes after he had killed Eustace Tiramisi, Stoker was standing at the edge of the melee, looking at the four eyes of the two men he most wanted to kill in the whole wide world.

  The two eyes of Johnny Spang, whose greed and ruthlessness had resulted in the deaths of two of his closest friends. Spang from China, who thought he had a right to take over New York.

  And the two eyes of Thomas Magnelli, who had bled the city dry for two decades. The city that Stoker loved. Magnelli – whose
wanker sidekick Hitoshi had killed Stoker’s friend and mentor Kowalski, and currently held his two remaining friends in the world hostage back at the warehouse upriver.

  They were less than a hundred feet away from him, but between him and them, Stoker had the small matter of the most heinous non-race-related brawl in New York history.

  Stoker was a deeply intelligent man, proven beyond doubt by previous mentions of his unexpected and novel reading of fine literature, and knew that it would be suicide for any normal guy to try to fight through that melee.

  ‘Hmmph...’ any normal guy.

  Stoker damn well did exactly damn that.

  He hadn’t been exhausted… truly exhausted… for thirty five years, when at the age of nine he had engaged in a brutal stand up fistfight with his Physical Education teacher in New York Elementary School. Even at nine, Stoker had dealt a few blows that caused his opponent to reel back in horror. But ultimately, his teacher, who was well over six feet and a former marine, had edged the fight and grappled him to the ground. Stoker had been unable to move for a couple of days after that.

  But he was pretty close to being exhausted now. The last three days had seen him go through physical exertions too extreme to contemplate, and mental exertions too diabolical for most to commit to page. He was beat up, and fed up, and damn tired.

  He figured he had enough energy for perhaps one or two more fights. But he wasn’t stupid. If he caught too many more punches, he’d be down, and once he was down, any one of these mooks, kooks or spooks could end him.

  He shoved his way through the first set of bodies, crushing the windpipe of a screaming Raver and buttheading the charging Oriental who was about to behead him with a cleaver.

  Two down.

  He ducked under a Rocker swinging a lead pipe and watched as he was stabbed in the back by the last remaining Shaman from Shanghai. Blood poured out of his mouth like a baby person vomiting porridge.

  Stoker jumped over a bench and slammed his fist into the nape of the neck of one of Spang’s goons. He felt the spine jar and knew the kid would never walk again.

  He shrugged and clasped his hands over the blade of an approaching knife, carried by a Biker from Tennessee, who had a tattoo on his forehead which said ‘Tennessee’ and leather jacket which was probably a little bit too small for him.

  Stoker uppercutted the biker, sending his head flying backwards, and moved on.

  By this time he was causing quite a stir, and Spang couldn’t work out which of Magnelli’s gangs this gigantic monster in a leather coat belonged to.

  Could be a Biker… but he’s too tall and lean.

  Could be a Raver… but he had bright, intelligent, kind eyes.

  Magnelli was also puzzled by this silhouette of a man-mountain wading through the warzone. He seemed to be American, or a Whiteman at least, so why the hell was he taking down Bikers and Ravers as well has Spang’s henchmen? It made no sense.

  Then the man-mountain looked up and made eye contact with Magnelli, pointing his finger straight at him and running his (other) finger across his throat.

  Magnelli hadn’t spoken Italian for twenty years, but in a completely impromptu and telling development, fell back against the railing, turned as pale as a sheet, and gasped:

  ‘Mamma Mia. O, Mamma, mamma mia.’

  He would have defecated and urinated his britches, had he not been on a high fibre diet for many months, and having used the Rest-Room (American for bog) in the Bronco Roadhouse.

  Magnelli fumbled for his cellphone, pressed a combination of buttons, waited a short but plausible amount of time, and screamed into it.

  ‘LIMO. NOW.’ He slammed the phone shut and put it in his pocket.

  Back in the middle of the battlefield, Stoker saw that Magnelli was making a plan to leave. He threw down the meat-carcass of the Chinaman he had just killed with his damn bare hands.

  He started to sprint through the few remaining bodies towards Magnelli, Spang and Lowenstein, who in a moment of light relief, was comically fumbling his briefcase towards his chest whilst trying to adjust his glasses, which had gone skew-whiff.

  But just as he was about to break free, he felt a forearm round his neck. Muscular, warm legs wrapped round the back of his hips and he heard the familiar, ash corrupted voice of Lenny Thunder.

  ‘We knew you’d turn up, you Motherfucker. Now you’ll die.’

  Thunder’s teeth bit into the soft flesh of his neck.

  Stoker knew he had about three seconds before he was dead, his carotid artery in critical danger of being severed.

  Thunders long red ponytail flew round over his head as he drove his sharp yellow teeth deep into the throat of our hero.

  Stoker grabbed it the hair and yanked. Thunder flipped over his shoulders and landed on the ground in front of him. Stoker dove on him and grabbed the rusty chain from his hands.

  ‘You want to fight fair, Thunder? No weapons?’

  Thunder flipped to his feet.

  ‘I never fight fair. I got a backup.’

  He pulled a huge iron pipe from his back pocket. The damn thing must have weighed a stone.

  Stoker ran his huge hands through his long, dark hair. Hair so long, dark and true that you would believe it was an expensive wig or at the very least the work of an experienced ‘Holly Wood’ CGI company.

  He touched his hand to his neck, blood pouring down his leather jacket and running into little pools at his feet.

  Thunder continued:

  ‘And anyway, bitch, you pulled my hair. What, you fighting like a little girl now? I’ve looked forward to putting you in the ground since I first met you in the bar in chapter twenty-seven.’

  ‘You’re the guy who bites in a fistfight. Well soon you’ll be biting the pillow – in the MORGUE.’

  Stoker saw Magnelli wave frantically at an approaching Limo. His hand was on Lowenstein’s shoulder. Close by, Spang was pacing up and down, frantically watching as the number of fighting men dwindled.

  Frank Stoker didn’t have long before Magnelli escaped, and probably Spang too.

  Thunder ran his fingers up and down his pipe, stroking the rusty, heavy shaft.

  Stoker looked around for a weapon.

  With luck, he found two of the most dangerous damn weapons in the whole of New York.

  Weapons that he had had since he was a boy.

  Weapons that were attached to his arms.

  Weapons that were his fists.

  Stoker advanced, first swiping the bar out of the air with a single jab, sending it flying backwards into a convenient bush.

  Stoker’s second punch hit Thunder in the shoulder, dislocating his collarbone.

  The third punch was to the testicles, turning them into silly putty.

  The fourth was an axe-handled smash to the crown of the head, a sickening crunch as the top of Thunder’s skull cracked.

  Stoker didn’t need a fifth.

  He stepped over the dead body of Lenny Thunder and ran up the small bank towards Magnelli.

  But he was too late. Magnelli and Lowenstein bundled their own and each other’s bodies into the limousine automobile and flew down the road towards Magnelli’s warehouse.

  Stoker turned to Spang.

  Spang turned to Stoker.

  Spang bowed.

  Stoker refused to bow but ended up curtseying accidentally, which really can happen to anyone at any time and is not always intentional.

  ‘Well well, you must be Frank Stoker. You have proven a true thorn in my side. Almost as annoying as Thomas Magnelli… but, as you can see,’ he said, pointing out at the dead bodies of eighty-four henchmen. ‘I have more pressing problems at hand than you. Magnelli has won. The city will not be mine.’

  Stoker ran his hands through his hair, coolly.

  ‘You got bigger problems than me?’

  ‘Yes, of course, fool. What is more important than power.’

  Stoker maintained his iron stare into Spang’s eyes – or was it into his soul.

>   ‘What’s more important than power?’ He laughed, but it was not a happy laugh, it was one of those laughs that men do when they are angry and are about to say something profound.

  ‘How about friendship. How about the life of Moe Brown. A humble café owner. Or Marvin ‘Rooster’ McRinninertihan – a poor, homeless informant whose only crime was to be friends with me. Or Josef Kowalski. The most noble and humble man I have ever met – myself included’ Stoker added modestly, ‘and their blood is on your hands, Spang.’

  ‘How naïve of you, Mr Stoker. How beautifully naïve. For a start, my men didn’t even carry out the murder of Kowalski – that was Hitoshi. As for your other two friends, the negroes, yes, my men had them killed. But it was only business. And now, all my men are dead. But I don’t suppose that bothers you now, does it? And I really must be returning to Beijing. Your country rather bores and disgusts me, and I have a criminal empire to run. Shall we?’

  Spang raised his hands in the air, held flat, and kind of sideways if that makes sense, in the time honoured way of the Taekwondo expert.

  Stoker bowed, and held his hands by his sides, one in a fist, the other palm flat, and facing the moon, in the noble way of the brutal version of Karate which he had learnt from his Sensai, Sensai Wilson.

  Spang returned the bow, and jumped into a cartwheel, his hands moving like lightning in the air. Stoker jumped back, issuing a Lotus punch to Spang’s midriff but catching only air.

  Spang was quick.

  Stoker formed the Grace Waterfall stance, and threw a combination which his Sensai, Sensai Wilson had named ‘The Thunder of the Butterfly’s Wings’.

  Spang laughed it off as he swatted away Stoker’s hands with his left hand, whilst biting his nails with his right.

  The little Chinaman jumped in the air, spinning 720 degrees, and introduced his heel to the bridge of Stoker’s nose. Blood spunked all over the ground.

  Spang giggled, and followed with a series of spiteful judo chops to Stoker’s head and chest.

  Stoker resorted to the last move in his Sensai, Sensai Wilson’s arsenal. The Singapore Ding-a-ling involved a two fingered prod to the eye as a decoy, and a crashing knee to the solar plexus which was enough to kill most men, and stop all but the very best.