Fist First

by Nigel Mustard

  Spang caught his fingers in mid-air, and using Stoker’s hip as a springboard, flipped over his shoulder, breaking both of his fingers as he arced up and over.

  ‘Please Mr Stoker. No more of your bastard American Kung Fu. You embarrass me, and shame yourself.’ Spang held his hands to his hips and laughed.

  Stoker angrily thought of all the time he had spent in the dojo of Sensai Wilson, eagerly learning, whilst diligently paying his monthly bills on time. Is this what he paid for? To lose and die at the hands of a man half his size practicing a corrupt version of Karate?

  Spang ran at him again, a dozen alternating left and right kicks to seemingly every part of his body. Taekwondo chops to the head, and viper-like knees which were too quick to see.

  Stoker was nearly down and out.

  He thought of Moe, Rooster and Kowalski, all resting in pieces. Thought of his beloved city, falling to the hands of Magnelli. Thought of Spang escaping back to Beijing. Thought of Janney and Chloe, about to be torn apart by the monster Hitoshi.

  Unless he could stop it.

  Unless you can do something, you old bastard.

  Unless.

  He threw the only move he had left, a cold, quick right handed jab. This ain’t a move you can learn in any damn dojo. This is learnt on the damn streets. Stoker had been born on the streets, and would probably damn die there too. Where others fear to tread, Stoker went in fist first.

  (If that last paragraph reads as though it was shoe-horned in to accommodate the title of the book somewhere in the text, then the author makes no apologies. This is simply not the case and you are a fool if you do not take his (my) word for it).

  Stoker’s jab was blindingly quick and deafeningly strong. He caught Spang in the jaw, his broken fingers stinging as he made contact. But, like a scorpion who is late for a picnic, Stoker didn’t have time to sting.

  Spang’s head jarred and he looked with disbelief at the giant gwai lo who had caught him.

  Stoker smiled. Spang wasn’t moving so quick now.

  As Spang jumped over him one more time, Stoker jumped too, grabbing Spang by his expensive pants belt with his left hand and round the throat with his right.

  As gravity lazily did its inevitable work of pulling them both back to the ground, Stoker gave it a little helping hand, pulling Spang down onto his knee with every ounce of energy he had left. His body crumpled around the gigantic kneeknuckle of Frank Stoker. Spang wheezed and cried out, his back broken. He tried to move to stand up, but he couldn’t even move his neck.

  His tiny eyes peered up at Stoker.

  ‘Please, have mercy. Have mercy, American man.’

  Stoker cracked his knuckles on his left hand and felt his broken fingers.

  He looked around at the mayhem in front of him. The battle had been evenly fought, and only a couple of men still stood, both scurrying away into the night. It was so dark that Stoker couldn’t even see if they were on Magnelli’s side or Spang’s. He guessed it didn’t matter.

  The bodies of a hundred and fifty warriors lay on the floor.

  He looked down at the crying Spang, paralysed for life.

  ‘You want mercy? This is mercy.’

  Stoker stamped his heel onto Spang’s face, once, twice, three times, ten times. He stamped again and again.

  He stamped, and screamed.

  When Spang’s face and brain lumps had been smeared over the pavement like peanut butter on hot toast, Stoker climbed aboard Lenny Thunder’s Harley Davidson motorbike and roared after Magnelli.

  Chapter 48

  As the Limo raced through the deserted streets towards his warehouse, Magnelli looked over at Lowenstein, a snivelling wretch. He had to admit, he was shaken up by the appearance of Stoker. How the hell had he got out of jail?

  But Lowenstein looked twice as scared. A true coward. Magnelli sneered.

  He would have to have serious words with Von Klatt about this god damn shitball of a fuck fiasco. He paid him good money to get rid of that cocksucker Stoker, and if he had taken any risks to pay off some personal debt, then Magnelli would have to ensure that Clarence Von Klatt never let him down again.

  As the limo was racing away from the Statue of Liberty, Magnelli had seen Stoker destroy Lenny Thunder with ease. The mob boss barely shrugged. He knew Thunder was tough, but he’d seen and heard enough of what Stoker could do to know they were no match. He’d also seen saw Spang and Stoker start to lock in combat just as they disappeared behind a wall.

  Would Spang defeat him?

  Even if he didn’t, they would soon be safe back at the warehouse.

  Back safe with Hitoshi.

  Safe.

  Magnelli couldn’t decide which would be worse – Spang to escape back to China, or for Stoker to be heading over to his warehouse now.

  Lowenstein blew words into the silence.

  ‘Mr Magnelli, sir, I could never have foreseen this statistical inference. The presence of Frank Stoker has recalibrated any semblance of order that I had predicted. I should not be held accountable….’

  Magnelli backhanded him across the face, then fronthanded him right on the very damn throat.

  ‘Silence, you coward. If we don’t get away with this, you’ll be the first person I deal with, you Jew fuck. I spend enough damn money to keep you on retainer, and your great plan has fallen to its knees because you couldn’t factor in one moving part – the intrusive moving part of Frank Stoker.’

  Lowenstein’s protestations mutated into silences.

  ‘Why the hell are you just sitting there? Call Von Klatt, and get him to send fifty cops here immediately. Fifty cops without some sanctimonious sense of duty to the innocent people of New York, or that punk Stoker.’ He slapped him again.

  Lowenstein cowered and squirtled words meekly into the tiny holes that had been cleverly drilled into the speaksection of his cellular phone.

  ‘Yes, sir, it is I, Lowenstein, Reuben Attorney. Send at least fifty men to the warehouse, presently. I declare I must take my leave as I am in a rapidly volatile automobile accompanying Mr Magnelli at this juncture.’ His sweaty palms closed his phone shut.

  Magnelli held a gun at the nape of the neck of his driver for the whole journey, imploring him to keep the speed above one hundred miles per hour. When enough rubber had been burnt to make a million burnt condom jonny rockets, they finally pulled up outside the warehouse.

  Magnelli jumped out of the cab and spat at the driver:

  ‘Wait here. You see anything, you call me.’

  The driver’s knees knocked together (because he was frightened).

  Magnelli and Lowenstein entered the warehouse by lifting the huge corrugated door located at the front of the building. What they saw shocked even them.

  Hitoshi stood between Michael Janney and Chloe Crawford. They were both tied to a chair, faces bloodied. A barrel of water sat on the ground in front of the Japanese monster.

  Hitoshi bowed as he saw Magnelli.

  Magnelli grabbed him as he hurried past to his office upstairs.

  ‘Listen Hitoshi… Stoker might be on his way. You can’t let him up here… no matter what. We’ve called Von Klatt and we’ve got fifty corrupt cops heading down here as soon as possible. Just kill him – and if you can’t kill him, just keep him away from me until they arrive.’

  He stared at Hitoshi with his cold, grey eyes before turning to climb the stairs. Hitoshi had never seen his master scared before.

  ‘Oh, and Hitoshi?’ Magnelli called from the top of the stairs. ‘Kill one of those two kids. There’s too many moving parts for my liking.’

  Hitoshi grunted as the door to Magnelli’s office slammed.

  He stared into the reflective surface of the blade and saw his eyes, bright and evil, shining back at him.

  Hitoshi grunted again.

  Chapter 49

  Fifty years ago, on the slopes of Mount Fuji, a Japanese woman screamed melodramatically as her lady’s downstairs part presented a newborn human to the world
.

  This newborn human weighed fifteen pounds.

  The Japanese lady died as he squealed his first breath. The effort of passing him had been too much.

  His father, a proud fisherman, had a heart attack as he watched his wife die.

  By the time the baby had squealed twice, both his parents were ‘brown bread’ (cockney rhyming slang for dead).

  Hitoshi was passed from orphanage to orphanage to orphanage to orphanage, eventually ending up in the care of a great samurai warrior who lived in an authentic looking Japanese house on the other side of Mount Fuji.

  This warrior was cruel and savage, the last in a long line of Samurai warriors dating back to unspecifically ancient times.

  This warrior named the boy ‘Hitoshi’, which is a Japanese word for something.

  Hitoshi was six feet tall at eight years old, and soon wielded the samurai blade as well as any grown man in the village.

  By nine, he was entering samurai talent shows across the county, and winning event after event. The Tokyo elders raised their finely plucked eyebrows and tousled their long grey whiskers in intrigue at the bastard orphan from the slopes of Mount Fuji. Could he be destined for greatness? Or a lifetime of savagery?

  When Hitoshi was ten, he was awoken in the middle of the night in his bedroom with those paper walls you always see in Japan.

  He heard the tippy tappies of lightfooted ninjas creeping around his guardian’s house. Hitoshi calmly reached for his master’s trusty katana blade, and ran out of his room, blade twirling in hand.

  The time for play and practice was over, and the time for blood was upon him.

  He killed thirteen ninjas that night. Thirteen hardy fighting men from a neighbouring village on another side of Mount Fuji. They had come to murder his master.

  Hitoshi butchered them all before his master had even woken.

  It was his first taste of death. A taste he found most appealing. A taste he found moreish.

  His master elevated him immediately to the rank of Samurai – he was the youngest ever in the history of Japan.

  Two days later, his master led Hitoshi to a babbling brook, and a small tumbledown shack which hid the entrance to a cave.

  Inside the cave lived a blacksmith – an ancient katana maker. He was a small but worthwhile man who was respected throughout Japan as the finest sword maker in the country. Japanese arrogance therefore dictates that he must have been the finest in the world.

  Hitoshi’s savage but noble master insisted that the blacksmith forge the perfect blade for his young apprentice.

  The blacksmith worked for two years, day and night, to forge the most deadly and beautiful blade in Japanese history.

  At the age of twelve, Hitoshi picked up his blade for the first time. It rarely left his hands again.

  In his teens, he was a master sumo wrestler, boxer and scholar. Women from all sides of Mount Fuji courted him, but he showed no interest.

  All he cared about was killing.

  He soon fell afoul of his jealous master, as Hitoshi could best him at every element of ‘The Samurai Way’ (trademark Nigel Mustard 1993), and was not sufficiently deferential to him about it.

  They parted company, and a month later, at the age of sweet sixteen, he was employed as an enforcer for the local Yakuza crime boss.

  Before long, he was carving up Japanese people all over the city of Tokyo.

  He quickly lost sight of good and evil.

  At eighteen, he was banished from Japan for the crime of butchery of an innocent. He had killed a mother and her baby, the family of a rival crime boss.

  In Japan, it is extremely unethical to kill an innocent woman or child – indeed it is most frowned upon and shamed. Hitoshi was ordered never to return.

  As he stood on the old steamboat which pulled out of Tokyo harbour slowly, bound for the New World, he held his katana high in the air, saluting his master, who had returned one last time to see his pupil.

  ‘No, not my pupil. My son.’ He said with a teardrop.

  His master saluted back and began his long walk back up the slopes of Mount Fuji to his home.

  He bowed in front of the fireplace, and begged the Japanese version of God for his forgiveness. Forgiveness for making Hitoshi what he was.

  He committed Hara Kiri with his own ancient blade.

  Chapter 50

  Janney thought he heard a door slam and started to come to. He then felt water splashed on his face and finished coming to.

  He looked over and saw Hitoshi slapping Chloe to wake her up.

  ‘Hey asshole, why don’t you try that on me, ya damn coward.’

  Hitoshi walked over and slapped Janney round the face.

  Janney smarted and in all probability regretted inviting the slap. Slaps can really hurt.

  ‘What are you gonna do with us?’ Janney used his brave mouth to speak words of defiance.

  Hitoshi laughed back at him.

  ‘Kill one. Keep other for when Stoker come. As hostage.’

  Janney understood the situation, because he had damn street smarts, and because it was actually fairly clear.

  Chloe screamed, unnecessarily.

  Janney’s head pounded, but he still loved her, despite the piercing scream, and the worrying implications it had on any future they would have had together if one of them wasn’t about to die.

  He was a marine, dammit. Sworn to protect the borders, women and babies of America. He only had one option.

  ‘OK, you punk. Kill me. I’m here.’

  Hitoshi looked at Janney.

  Hitoshi looked at Chloe.

  Hitoshi looked back at Janney.

  You get the gist. There was a lot of shots of people staring at each other, from various different camera angles. It was like a Mascharino film.

  Hitoshi looked back at Chloe and smiled, throwing his intricately carved bonsai pipe to the floor.

  ‘No.’

  Janney shook his head and screamed.

  ‘What do you mean no? Kill me! Kill the US Marine. Not a damn girl!’

  Hitoshi grunted and picked up Chloe, holding her in the air. He spun her round and carried her to the barrel of water. He dunked her in head first.

  Janney started to panic. He could hear the gurgling of Chloe – his love – his piece of ass.

  His hands turned 360 degrees in their sockets as he tried to pull out of his bonds… but they had been tied fast with Japanese Knotweed.

  He only had one option.

  ‘Hitoshi. You are Samurai. Great warrior.’

  Hitoshi barely flinched but raised his eyebrows skywards.

  ‘I am great warrior too. American Marine.’

  Hitoshi puffed and looked up at Janney.

  ‘You fight with honour, and so do I.’

  By this time Hitoshi had released some of the pressure on Chloe’s head.

  ‘And there is no honour in killing a woman. Kill me instead. Kill a marine. I beg you, on your honour.’

  Hitoshi pulled Chloe out of the barrel and she barfed water everywhere, and I mean everywhere. It was a truly repellent scene.

  Janney breathed a sigh of relief.

  Hitoshi hoisted all 220 pounds of him into the air and into the barrel in one quick motion, with one hand.

  Janney’s hands were tied behind his back, and he struggled against Hitoshi’s violent strength for only a few seconds. He valiantly realised that it was better not to fight it – that would only mean that Hitoshi killed Chloe instead, or as well, or instead.

  ‘This has been one hell of an adventure, Michael’, he thought to himself in an American accent, bravely and correctly.

  He lasted a minute or two before needing to breathe.

  After two, his lungs burned and his throat felt like it was full of a large apple or three.

  After three minutes the lack of oxygen to his brain and key internal organs caused his body to start shutting down.

  He wondered whether Chloe would be his last kiss. Whether the strawberry he
ate yesterday would be the last sweet thing to cross his lips. Whether the involuntary erection he had wielded four hours ago in the library would be his last response to sexual stimulus.

  His life flashed before his eyes. He remembered playing stickball with the boys up on Madison Avenue. He remembered stealing humbugs from Old Man Riley’s sweetshop, the sweet, sweet candy dissolving to shit in his mouth as the guilt had washed over him.

  In the background, soothing music played on pan pipes played at an appropriately sensitive volume.

  Remembered throwing the pigskin around with his pop one summer’s day, and wondering why life can’t be like this all the time? In this dream, when he looked into his father’s face, the face was the face of Frank Stoker, which was symbolic.

  He remembered his first kiss and fumble with Janey Matthews, his first bike which he went head over handlebars the first time he rode, his first and last cigarette at the age of seventeen, playing nookie with Leroy Lemar, the big kid from class.

  All these things melted together, into a wobbly memory mass, a bulbous brain ball. Then, they were replaced by a soft blue light, glowing and warm. It grew brighter, and warmer.

  Janney heard a voice.

  The voice was soft, and welcoming.

  There was a sense of finality, but in a good way.

  Janney just had to let go, and all the pain would be over. All the terrible things he had done would dissolve.

  Janney let go, and everything turned black.

  Chapter 51

  Stoker pulled the Harley Davidson over on the kerb outside the warehouse. The building loomed above him in the darkness. He saw Magnelli’s limo parked up outside the front entrance and the featureless limo driver, who was an ancillary character, quite literally sitting in the driver’s seat. He hadn’t spotted Stoker.

  Everything was quiet.

  That suited Stoker. He knew Magnelli would have already called Von Klatt and that there would be a couple of unmarked police cruisers on their way over.

  He had about ten minutes.

  Stoker was exhausted. He wasn’t sure that he had ten minutes worth of fight left in him.