Fist First

by Nigel Mustard

  The ordeals of the past couple of days had been beyond that of, for example, most leading men in crime novels. The fact that Stoker was still standing was testament to his sheer toughness, if not also to the imagination and tenacity of his creator.

  The limo driver didn’t even hear him approach. Stoker knew he was a civilian, so treated him kindly. He put him to sleep with a guillotine choke, sending him drifting into unconsciousness quietly, then sensitively threw him gently over the railing and into the freezing Hudson River.

  With a fair wind and God’s grace, he would wake up before he drowned, and could return to his friends and family.

  Stoker really had no other option.

  He held his ribs and squinted handsomely as he neared the corrugated steel door of the warehouse. Grimacing, he lifted it and stepped into hell.

  The main warehouse smelt of blood and dog food. Like my ex-wife. The front part of the cavernous room was empty, save for a few canning machines. But at the end, in the darkness, lay Hitoshi and his victims, about thirty feet away on the other side of the warehouse.

  Stoker peered intensely to try to make out what was happening, still holding the warehouse door open in the air with one hand.

  Chloe squealed and squirmed in her seat but her ropes were tied fast. Time was really running out for her to do anything to materially affect the outcome of the story.

  Hitoshi threw the body of Janney to the floor like a piece of damn trash as Stoker let the warehouse door slam to the ground behind him.

  When Frank Stoker saw the corpse of his friend, salty, alkaline tears spurted forth from his eyeballs. He was so upset, that if those tears had eyeballs, they would be crying themselves.

  Sadness turned to rage.

  He strode towards Hitoshi.

  Hitoshi puffed his cheeks out and unsheathed his sword from its scabbard. He rotated his face and stuck out his tongue, before grunting.

  If you’ve been paying any attention, you’ll realise that Stoker ain’t not nobody’s fool, and wasn’t about to start a damn fistfight against a sword-wielding madman.

  He needed a weapon… and fast, or it would be curtains for Frank Stoker. ‘And No Mistake!’

  He was ten yards away from Hitoshi when he saw one of the old canning machines mutely offer some help in the form of a huge rusty lever that protruded from its midsection like a gigantic robot phallus.

  Stoker ripped the lever out of its socket, threw it from hand to hand to gauge the weight, and continued his walk towards Hitoshi.

  He stopped six feet away from him.

  Hitoshi raised all of his eyebrows at once.

  ‘You. Stoker. Why you must come here to die?’

  Stoker replied, coolly:

  ‘I came here to watch you die, you scum sucking slut.’

  Stoker threw the lever from his right to his left, and then jabbed at Hitoshi.

  The samurai’s blade moved quicker than anything Stoker had ever seen, including things in the sky and even from films.

  It hit the lever in the middle, nary a truer strike seen. The lever held in one piece but Stoker’s left arm was nearly torn out of its socket by the force of the blow.

  Stoker moved with the motion like a fish in the ocean and hopped from his right to left foot, swivelling backwards to try to stay out of range of the blade.

  Hitoshi left no room for error. The blade carved down behind him, slicing his shoulder about an inch deep.

  Stoker learnt quick. He wouldn’t turn his back on that blade again.

  He watched Hitoshi swing back and drive the sword at him with full force. But don’t worry yet - Stoker was quick enough to knock it sideways and retreat again.

  Hitoshi was enraged. At just under a minute, this was already his longest fight in ten years and he wasn’t used to missing targets with his deadly katana.

  For the next three strokes, all Stoker could do was simply survive. Hitoshi pirouetted thrice and crashed the blade down, but each time Stoker remained focus and was able to deflect the blows by keeping one (of his) hand(s) at each end of the huge lever.

  At the third strike, purple and cyan sparks flew off the length of the blade as it ran down the iron lever.

  Hitoshi screamed with rage.

  Stoker smiled seductively and started to goad Hitoshi as he continued his defense.

  He headnodded at the rusty weapon in his hands.

  ‘This lever? American made iron. Not liable to fall apart under the smallest hint of Oriental breeze. Before that cockroach sucker Magnelli moved in here, this was an honest, working factory for two hundred years. It’s New York made, and built to last.’

  Despite the bravado and objectively amusing dialogue, Stoker was tiring. He had given everything over the past few days. He wouldn’t last long on the retreat.

  He had to level the playing field and eliminate that damn sword.

  By now, Hitoshi was incensed, throwing slash after slash after Stoker but being denied every time.

  Stoker led him ever backwards and sideways, towards the thick central pole, made of sturdy beechwood, which acted as a central support for the building.

  ‘This was to have been my only chance’ Stoker would presumably think later, if he survived.

  He whistled at Hitoshi, blew a raspberry, and got what he needed. A careless strike, more power than precision, sailed over Stoker’s ducking head, and the blade impregnated the pole with a sickening thud. Hitoshi lost balance and continued to spin, flying sideways into a set of crates.

  He clambered to his feet, mumbling in foreign, and turned to see Frank Stoker grinning like a madman as he wrenched the handle of the wedged Katana with two musclebound hands.

  Hitoshi was paralysed with rage as the blade started to bend. Stoker’s face was red with exertion – veins bulged in his neck and steam fizzed gently from his ears. The blade continued to contort under Stoker’s grasp. Before Hitoshi could get his thoughts together, Stoker had wrapped it around the pole.

  Cold-rolled Japanese steel, forged in the lowlands of Mount Fuji. Centuries old.

  Award winning katana in several Samurai talent shows in the mid-eighties.

  Bent into a spiral like it was some kid’s shatterproof ruler.

  Hitoshi cried tears of sadness. Stoker had already shamed him. No samurai must lose his blade.

  The monster charged.

  Stoker had never seen anyone so big, nor seen anyone so fast.

  Hitoshi’s shoulder barge knocked him into the air, and he landed against cast iron water pump, which knocked the wind out of him. Being as it was an inanimate object, it showed little remorse. Stoker wheezed as he gasped for breath. He was in great pain.

  But Frank Stoker didn’t have time to feel sorry for himself.

  Hitoshi was already coming for him again, sprinting and screaming like something from a bad nightmare. Stoker used all of his street smarts and some of his book smarts to wrench himself up just in time. Hitoshi’s fist punched the iron pump and sheared it completely from its base.

  Hitoshi screamed again and looked down at him, rolling away on the floor.

  Stoker leapt to his feet, his broken ribs killing him, and spat blood which dribbled down his chin and onto his shirt.

  Hitoshi was right in front of him, a head taller than Stoker and with a seven stone weight advantage.

  Stoker swore he saw Hitoshi raise one eyebrow and respectfully bow, but he was too busy dodging haymakers to be sure. Left followed right followed left (with admittedly boring predictability.)

  Stoker ducked some, but the first that hit him nearly knocked him clean out. It grazed his jaw but the sheer force knocked his head sideways, and nearly put the man on the ground.

  There was no doubt about it, Stoker was in trouble.

  Hitoshi drop kicked him in the chest, sending him sprawling to the ground. He ran up behind Stoker and flung him over his hip, judo style, up in the air then crashing to the floor again.

  Stoker winced as Hitoshi jumped on him and drove three pun
ches to his kidneys and two to the back of the head.

  Hitoshi wrapped his forearm under his chin and pulled Stoker off the floor and into the air.

  Hitoshi’s diabolical laugh returned as he cackled a menacing rhyme.

  ‘He he he… I choke-a.. Frank Stoker…’

  Stoker kicked and wriggled like a worm and a mule respectively but to no avail. Hitoshi’s grip was tighter than anything he’d ever experienced.

  He was losing consciousness.

  He saw a long jetty, leading out to a placid lake.

  At the end of the jetty, stood an old man.

  Stoker walked to meet him.

  It was Chief Kowalski. He had scars all over his face.

  But the further Stoker walked towards him, the further away the Chief seemed to get.

  Suddenly, the jetty exploded, and Stoker was floating, kicking his legs and swimming into the sky.

  He saw New York beneath him, his one true love.

  He saw Thomas Magnelli looming over it.

  He kept kicking, swimming through the stars, until his feet caught on something.

  Strange. He tried his other foot and met the same resistance.

  Then he woke up.

  He’d managed to prod his two feet between two pipes in the warehouse wall. Through eyes filled with blood, he saw this was his only chance. He pulled Hitoshi towards the railings by folding his legs up, then pushed back with an almighty force. Hitoshi tumbled with him, and Stoker landed full force on top of him, before being able to roll free and back onto his feet.

  Hitoshi was up almost immediately.

  The two men stared at each other.

  Stoker cracked his knuckles.

  Hitoshi grunted.

  Stoker waited for the first punch, absorbed it with his chin and lips, and hit back with a venomous uppercut. For the first time, Hitoshi was stunned. Stoker made the most of it by following with a savage left jab and a driving knee which caught Hitoshi on the lip.

  But the Japanese monster rallied, and hit Stoker again with a crashing blow to the sternum, and a karate chop to the temple.

  And now it was a stand up fist fight. A war.

  The two men hurled punches at each other like they were going out of fashion. (Something that ain’t never gonna happen.)

  Stoker caught a volley of fists to his precious testicles and upper thigh, but at the same time, cracked Hitoshi in the side of the neck with a cuff from his right.

  Hitoshi ducked a haymaker from Stoker, and returned it with a roundhouse kick which would have killed most normal men.

  Stoker bounced back off the wall and kicked Hitoshi back. A simple football punt. But I guess if football was played by six feet six, two hundred and forty pound New York cops, then perhaps it might be a different sport?

  Hitoshi caught it in the belly, and his feet left the floor with the force, falling onto his back.

  Stoker sailed through the air after him, which was a damned stupid mistake.

  Hitoshi caught him easily, pulling our hero down on top of him and jamming his gigantic hands over Stoker’s face. Hitoshi’s fingers clamped round his mouth, tore at his lips, and covered his nose. Stoker was trapped.

  Hitoshi laughed again, his cackle ringing around the warehouse.

  ‘Poor Stoker. Come to warehouse to save friends. Now die here. Hitoshi too big. Hitoshi too strong.’

  Hitoshi’s arm’s bulged as he squeezed on Stoker’s head.

  He laughed barbarically.

  Stoker felt Hitoshi’s fingernails scrape his eye-lenses.

  He felt his mouth being pulled into two pieces.

  ‘One last push now, you old bastard.’ Stoker whispered. ‘One last push.’

  Hitoshi stopped laughing as Stoker’s arms began to push himself upwards.

  Hitoshi redoubled his efforts, rocking back and forward to keep Stoker down.

  But still, Stoker’s gigantic biceps elevated him ever skywards. Eventually, he wrenched free of Hitoshi’s grasp for an instant, the monster’s hands slipping off his head and flailing in the air.

  Hitoshi wouldn’t take long to grab him again, and if he did, he was dead.

  Stoker made no mistake.

  He balled his left fist, Old Faithful, and cocked his arm backwards. He twisted his back and shoulder into a breathtakingly hard swing and let the fist do the work.

  Down it went, knocking Hitoshi’s grasping fingers out of the way.

  Down, down into the bridge of Hitoshi’s nose, splitting it instantly across his face.

  Down, cracking the skull around the eye sockets.

  Down deeper, into the soft tissue beneath Hitoshi’s face, only stopping when his balled fist was deep inside his brain.

  His fist was shattered. Every bone in his knuckle had broken.

  Hitoshi lay still beneath him. A fragment of breath spluttered in and out of the gaping wound where his face used to be.

  Stoker rolled off Hitoshi and slowly staggered to his feet.

  He calmly picked up the New York made rusty lever.

  With one nod to Chloe, he drove the lever’s blunt end into Hitoshi’s belly, two feet deep.

  Hitoshi stopped spluttering.

  Stoker added coolly:

  ‘Hari Kiri, you son of a bitch.’

  He patted Chloe on the head.

  There was no time to untie her or placate her.

  He had to make his way upstairs to finish this.

  Chapter 52

  The German-made lock shattered as Stoker kicked the door open. What he saw was not a sight for sore eyes, but rather an eyesore which did, by any good man’s judgment, make his eyes sore.

  Thomas Magnelli and Reuben Lowenstein stood facing him, the other side of the huge mahogany desk which took up nearly a third of the whole room.

  They both held an illegal firearm in their right hand, and they were both pointed straight at Stoker.

  Stoker held his broken fist, blood pouring down his face, ribs throbbing and cracked. He had come so far, beating up grown men with his fists, and it looked like he about to lose to a damn bullet from a gun. He smiled, shaking his head.

  Magnelli purred like an engine from an old car doing an impression of a cat. Or vice versa I suppose.

  ‘Well, Stoker, you are one tough bastard, I’ll give you that. You’ve killed my samurai, which is more than a minor inconvenience. And I’ll miss Lenny Thunder’s unique way of doing things. But not even Frank Stoker can punch a bullet out of the air.’ His hand gripped tighter on the handle of his Mauser Glock pistolgun.

  Stoker stared back, eyes like unmoving spheres of visual gloop, as Magnelli continued.

  ‘But your killing of Johnny Spang has just made things very easy for me. With no competition from invading chinks or from meddlesome hero cops, I’ll run this city. With Von Klatt’s help, there won’t be a cop left in the damn town who isn’t on my payroll. Now now, Mr Stoker, don’t look so shocked. Did you expect me to be waiting here for a fistfight with you? Were you really that… naïve? I fight fights with my brain, not my fists. And I certainly wouldn’t stand a chance against you, even in your current state.’

  Stoker just kept staring.

  ‘Listen, Stoker. Your time is up. Von Klatt and his boys will be here any time soon, and they’ll sweep you up, beat you up, lock you up and throw away the key. Any final requests?’

  Stoker coolly returned his gaze.

  ‘Yeah. Shut the hell up. You’re giving me a damn headache.’

  Magnelli snarled, baring his teeth.

  Lowenstein chimed in.

  ‘Mr Magnelli, time chronologically presses on, and may I suggest the time to despatch with your adversary is imminent?’

  Magnelli sneered back at Lowenstein.

  ‘Be quiet you Jew fuck. I don’t need advice from some cowardly lawyer.’

  He turned back to Stoker, his eyes narrowing with rage as the gun barrel still evilly pointed straight at the well rounded tip of Stoker’s nose.

  ‘Say goodnight, Fra
nk Stoker, you son of a bitch.’

  Magnelli laughed, and pulled the trigger.

  Nothing.

  He pulled again. And a third time.

  Nothing.

  Not one bullet flew out of the chamber.

  Magnelli issued a curse word and shouted back at Lowenstein.

  ‘My gun’s jammed. Shoot him you fucking idiot. SHOOT HIM.’

  Lowenstein’s reply was notorious by its absence. (He didn’t reply.)

  Instead, Lowenstein calmly switched the aim of his gun from Stoker to Magnelli, whose face was now painted with an expression of bewilderment.

  ‘Mr Magnelli, sir. Fifteen years ago, I entered your employ as a fledgling attorney, desirous of amassing a fortune at any cost.’

  Magnelli waved his finger at Lowenstein.

  ‘No, no, no. You… you don’t disobey me. You and your family will pay for this, I swear.’

  Lowenstein continued.

  ‘I could do it, for a while. I procured the pay checks and turned a blind eye. But then you conveyed me here for the first time. Alas, I could not turn a blind eye to what I saw here, Mr Magnelli. Human cadavers turned into dog food. Diabolical torture at the hands of your Japanese manservant Hitoshi.’

  Magnelli turned to face Stoker, who was smiling.

  ‘That’s right Magnelli. He couldn’t face working for you, so he made contact with Josef Kowalski. The damn Police Chief of the City who you had murdered. The kindest and most honest man in the city.’

  Magnelli’s face drooped and his shoulders slouched – his body language was reflecting his mood.

  Lowenstein picked up again.

  ‘I’d been clandestinely working undercover with Chief Kowalski for five years. Attempting to bestow him enough information to send you to New York Penitentiary for the rest of your life. And whilst you were exceedingly careful, we were not too far away from completing this mission. I have enough here to lock you up for thirty years at least.’ Lowenstein waved a manila envelope in the air around his face.

  Magnelli screamed.

  ‘You mean to tell me you two fucks are working together?’

  ‘Not quite that straightforward, Magnelli.’ Replied Stoker. ‘I knew Lowenstein was working with Kowalski because his widow gave me a letter which revealed it all. And I suspect that Lowenstein knew I knew something. But we hadn’t had the chance to speak. Until now.’