Fist First Read online

  But then a smile spread across Magnelli’s crocodilic face like a zip opening on some kid’s pencil case.

  ‘I like your style, Spang. I like hearing the words you are speaking. I like the damn taste of your tongue. How do we make this happen?’

  Spang uncrossed his legs and rolled into a ball before flicking from his back legs onto the balls of his hands. With one sweeping deft flick his entire body span in the air like a frog and he landed on his balls (of his feet) returning the stare of the remaining trio (of three) looking at him, aghast.

  ‘You leave everything to Johnny Spang. I can be… most surprising.’

  With that, Spang flicked his body inwards and outwards at the same time, spinning in the air and landing perfectly on the ends of his feet (his toes), before performing an elegant but menacing cartwheel and leaving the room.

  Crawford cracked his knuckles and poured himself a glass of foul whiskey. He sipped calmly.

  Lowenstein blew his nose and dropped his briefcase on the floor. When he bent down to pick it up he hit his forehead on the desk in a moment of classic slapstick. You probably had to see it to find it funny, but take my word for it.

  Suddenly, Magnelli said the following words:

  ‘Any other business?’

  Crawford replied, cackling:

  ‘Yes, actually. One man in this room is an inept, useless piece of garbage and should leave here, and never come back.’

  Lowenstein exclaimed: ‘Mr Crawford sir, this declaration is most unjust! I pronounce both myself and Mr Magnelli to be good citizens, and have treated your person with honesty at all times…’

  ‘Neither of you, Lowenstein. Relax. This dumb shit behind me.’ Said Crawford, pointing at Janney with a tobacco stained yellow finger!

  ‘GET OUT!’ Screamed Crawford, throwing his now empty (because he had drunk it (the whiskey) all) glass at Janney’s head.

  The glass smashed into a million smithereens on the corner of Janney’s cheek.

  Janney calmly held his hand to his face, notably seemingly unpained by this gross act of unruliness from his (now former) soon-to-be-ex employer. Blood trickled from his new cheek-hole and dripped down his fingers like some kids melting ice cream. Janney clenched his fists, before looking around the room and seeing Magnelli calmly stroking the barrel of his shiny firearm in his crotch. The one-eyed rifle was staring directly at Janney’s face.

  Janney smiled, shrugged and walked out of the room, shooting a look at the Mayor that could freeze ice.

  Chapter 19

  A period of time passed, in the way time has been passing since time immemorial. Seconds turned into minutes, and minutes obviously into hours. Hours do turn into days; but we are only in this case talking a matter of hours. Time passed.

  Things happened in this time though. This time was not a time of nothing. Rather, it was a time of something. Read on, and you shall find out what happened.

  Some time later, Stoker held his ribs and kicked the door down. It folded like butter and he stepped through. He had just enough energy left to stumble a few steps into the cabin and collapse on the hearth into a musclebound ball.

  Many (eleven) hours later he woke with a start.

  Hell… Time for a stock check. He was still lying exactly where he had first fallen to the floor. His ribs were throbbing, clearly three or four of them broken, and he had lost a huge deal of blood from the torture. The skin on his back was punctured like a tattered, moth eaten sieve. His right hand throbbed, and he couldn’t move his fingers that were attached to it. His left hand was better, and he was able to clench them into a ball.

  Good.

  He felt like he might need that fist later.

  His head was covered in matted blood, and his legs were bruised and sliced from a damn baseball bat and a samurai sword respectively. He rose slowly and put his weight onto his right leg, then onto his left.

  Good.

  He could walk.

  The truth was, he had been in worse conditions. He knew that Hitoshi had only been warming up before he had managed to escape. He imagined that Magnelli had given him the order to kill Stoker – that was the very thing that enabled Stoker the time to escape. What an almost definitely ironic (dictionary definition aside) situation.

  He looked around the room and realised he was not in his flat in NYC Downtown in New York… he seemed to be in a log cabin. He was dazed. He worked with his brain – his old ally - to piece together the events of the previous day.

  He remembered diving into the Hudson River, and swimming. He had passed out a couple of times in the freezing water, and only his sheer toughness, heroic courage and endearing everyman appeal had kept him from sinking beyond trace. Both times he woke up dozens of feet underwater, and had to fight his way through the choking wetness to the surface, pushing inquisitive eels and slimy jellyfish out of his way. He calculated that Magnelli’s goons and corrupt cops would be speeding after him in high speed speedboats and he needed to escape… just to survive… just to damn well survive….

  He had finally hit the shore… and then what? His damn mind went blank.

  He stumbled around the house like a drunkard. Ironically Stoker had a tremendous capacity for alcohol and rarely showed any signs of being drunk, even when entering drinking contests with Russian body builders and Irish (men).

  He rubbed his temples with the tips of his fingertips and thought.

  ‘Think Stoker, think, you old no good beat cop…’

  He had hit the shore and seen a sign.

  PIERMONT MARSH

  Piermont Marsh… Piermont Marsh. Where the hell was that? He remember making a bust there many years ago when he was still a fresh faced, clean shaven ‘Rookie’ (a newly qualified policeperson). He had run in to save a young family who were being terrorised by a team of vicious thugs. Stoker had gone in barehanded without back up. Five minutes later there were a whole load of unconscious thugs and one very safe and grateful family. They’d given him a medal for that one.

  Stoker had thrown it in the damn trash when he got home.

  He thought aloud: ‘Wait a damn minute… Piermont Marsh is up to seven miles upriver, up from Downtown of The Big Apple….’

  Frank Stoker had swum for seven miles, against the flow of the river, on a freezing night, after enduring over twelve hours of oriental torture, with six broken ribs.

  What had happened then?

  He remembered stumbling up to Piermont gas station and seeing a truck about to leave. He had run towards it and rolled on the floor like a lizard, coolly grabbing the underneath of the engine pipes like he was grabbing the collar of a low-down criminal, and allowed himself to be driven away.

  Frank Stoker, with one broken hand, had clung onto the bottom of a truck as it drove thirty miles north. He had finally fallen as the truck had slowed to a crawl at a turnpike and rolled into the woods like a lizard.

  And then what? The trail in his head went cold again. Stoker looked around the room and saw no sign that anyone else had been in the cabin for many days. There was a wood burning stove in the corner and Stoker threw in some twigs and logs he found outside the door, which was still smashed in two. He found a bottle of moonshine liquor in a cupboard and took a large swig without grimacing or recoiling, before pouring the rest over the logs. He set it on fire and sat down again on the floor.

  Stoker held a one way conversation with his own internal monologue.

  ‘Dammit Stoker, think. Where the hell are you and how did you get here?’

  End of discussion.

  Stoker liked his conversations like he liked his fights. Short. Brutal.

  Suddenly another piece of memory flitted into Stoker’s brain like a butterfly embroiled in the deadly breeze of a hand fan.

  Stoker remembered walking through the woods. He had heard a growl behind him and seen a pack of bloodthirsty cougars. They clearly smelt the blood and sensed that Stoker might be easy prey.

  Stupid cougars.

  Stoker was the alpha mal
e, whether on the mean streets of the city, in the bedroom (during sex), or in the leafy wilds of the lonely forest. He attacked them before they had a chance to pounce.

  Stoker had kicked the first one in the teeth, and thrown the second into woods. The remaining pack scampered away with tails between their legs.

  After this final energy was sapped, Stoker had stumbled to the nearest door – a tumbledown, deserted shack, which takes us back to the exact point this chapter began.

  And, almost as dynamically as it started, the chapter ends.

  Chapter 20

  Moe cleaned tables in a dignified way. He glanced at the hands on his watch, in order that he might know the time at the present moment. His watch answered him eagerly, fulfilling its purpose with greed.

  11.30 pm in the evening. Time to shut up shop.

  He turned to walk towards the door and was faced by a most curious sight. Twelve chinamen attired in crisp white trousers, white shoes, white socks, white shirts, white ties and white bowler hats, stood inside his cafe. He hadn’t heard them enter.

  ‘Oh Lord, I do declare I ain’t seen nothin’ like this in my whole damn life!’ Exclaimed Moe, cheerily. ‘I’m sorry gentlemen, but we closed. I can fix you up some coffee, but my grill’s off, and I ain’t of an age to be staying up all night any more. I am sorry, fellas.’

  Then, a most curious thing happened.

  The twelve men, dressed in white, fanned out and surrounded Moe.

  ‘Now listen boys, I don’t know why you here, but I ain’t got much in the till. You can have it all…’

  The twelve men all reached over their left shoulders with their right hands and unsheathed deadly rapier blades, about as long as a stunted child’s leg. Moe caught a glimpse of his reflection in one of the blades, before he caught a length of rapier in his back.

  He screamed ‘Why, Oh Lord, why?’ as the blades punctured him like cloves being studded into an orange at Easter by an ungrateful and often inattentive housewife.

  Chapter 21

  Stoker coolly strode into the gas station and made eye contact with the middle aged attendant, six foot, brown hair, gold incisor tooth. Dragon tattoos covering both arms. Maybe 180 pounds. But… she was a woman.

  Surprised? Stoker wasn’t. He’d seen and had women all over the city of New York and was never surprised or intimidated to see another.

  He walked over, limping on his left foot with an easy coolness.

  ‘Hey there mister, you look like you’ve had a bad night.’ The female gas station attendant rotated her eyeballs to view Stoker up and down and, frankly, liked what she saw. This rugged, injured guy was easy on the eyeballs.

  ‘Maybe you need to stay in a warm, comfortable bed?’ She winked, first with her left eye, then immediately again with her right.

  ‘Hmph… is that an offer?’ replied Stoker, brazenly.

  ‘Depends, sugar… you like what you see?’ She leaned over the counter, positioning her ample breasts so that they poked out of her low cut denim jacket.

  ‘Hmph. You ain’t in bad shape, babe.’ Replied Stoker, breathing heavily. The woman was pushing fifty but had a rebellious attractiveness that defied the admitted downturn in her appeal due to her age.

  Blood started to flow into the shaft of Stoker’s penis. He knew that feeling.

  He walked around the store, picking up some foodstuffs and beverages. It really isn’t important to the narrative the exact specifications of these foods and drinks. Stoker returned to the counter.

  ‘Got any Aspirin? I got a headache that could knock a bear out.’

  ‘Sure sweetie… just here. She bent down and wiggled her butt provocatively. Upon rising she put her right leg on the chair, revealing a remarkably small amount of cellulite for such an old woman. That was all Stoker needed.

  ‘Say, you got a storeroom out back? I have a feeling you might be due a stock take.’

  She smiled. ‘Sure, honey. Let me just close up for a bit.’ She strutted to the front of the shop with all the confidence of a catwalk model, despite only having about 40% of the attractiveness.

  Stoker was impressed.

  Within thirty damn seconds they were entwined in the store room, both panting extravagantly as they disrobed each other.

  She clasped his manhood between her left and right hands and rocked in a swirling motion. His moans proved that he liked what was happening.

  Classic foreplay.

  With a flamboyant but heterosexual gesture he swept a few boxes of sweet, sweet candy off the top of a tabletop. Any responsible store owner would have to throw those candies away now – well over fifteen dollars’ worth of sweet candy… Stoker didn’t skip a beat.

  Collateral damage.

  Stoker picked her up off the ground, then slammed her body down tenderly from a height and jumped on her.

  She groaned, sexually.

  By now, Stoker’s penis was fully erect, rock hard like a boiled candy cane. He wanted this damn woman and he didn’t care who knew about it.

  ‘I want you, lady.’ Panted Stoker, sultrily.

  ‘Oh sweetie…’ she moaned… ‘…you got me…’

  Stoker ripped off her denim jacket and denim jeans. She had clean white cotton panties on which Stoker chewed off with his sharp teeth.

  Within seconds, she wasn’t the only naked person in the room.

  He entered her, slowly at first, then continuing slowly, until finally ending slowly, orgasming with an intensity unreachable by most men over thirty. She had climaxed twice by the time Stoker was done.

  She stared at him in animalistic pleasure.

  ‘My god, I’ve never been taken like that before. You’re quite some man.’

  ‘Hmph... I guess I just know how to damn well treat a lady. Now… I believe we were in the middle of something?’

  Stoker’s cock rallied against her hip, pressing with a fervent intensity. His penis had died and risen, like our Lord Jesus Christ.

  She smiled hornily at the impressive resurrection.

  ‘Uh… already?’ She cried? ‘Oh… Yes… Yes…. YES….’

  She orgasmed again, thrice. They did it in several different mainstream sex positions, in an incredibly sensual, pleasurable bout of sex that was anything but gratuitous.

  When they had finished, she went to get some tissues and they both wiped themselves clean.

  ‘Christ, honey, you can take anything you want for free, I ain’t gonna charge you after that.’ She whined.

  ‘Hmph… I ain’t the sort to skimp on a debt’, he replied, coolly. ‘Take this.’

  He shoved a tatty twenty dollar bill into her hand. This was to pay for the food he had selected and was in no way offered or construed as payment for sexual intercourse.

  She grasped it and shoved it into her bra. ‘Well, I know men like you. I doubt I’ll see you again, but my name’s Josie, just in case I do.’ She whined again.

  He smiled. ‘Well Josie, it’s been a damn pleasure. Normally I prefer younger women as I find older broads – not to put too fine a point on it – repulsive. But you just gave me one hell of ride.’

  They high fived over the counter and Stoker picked up his food, drinks and medicine and turned to leave the store.

  On the way out, Stoker started to peruse the magazine rack. He picked up a monthly magazine about motorbikes. He then put it down because he had no interest in motorbike culture and thought that the sort of people who ride motorbikes are normally sad, middle aged men with nothing better to do.

  Stoker shrugged and left the store, coolly avoiding even a glance back at his middle aged sex companion.

  He walked up the hill through the woods to the cabin.

  There was no doubt about it, he felt better already, having had the best part of 24 hours in the cabin. He had slept, bathed in the lake and washed his rock hard muscles whilst standing in the evening moonlight. The moon cast shadows over his athletic legs and arms, and the dimples at the top of his legs filled with shadow, appealingly.

&
nbsp; He had even started to exercise to test his body. He knew he couldn’t stay up in the cabin for very long – Magnelli would no doubt be plotting some horrible revenge, and the arrival of the despicable Johnny Spang and his cronies could only mean terrible things for the one damn thing in Stoker’s life he truly loved… the city of New York.

  He decided to call Chief Kowalski and tell him what the latest was. The tumbledown, seemingly abandoned cabin (perhaps surprisingly) had a working phone in the corner. Stoker didn’t give this much thought and just decided to use it.

  ‘This is Kowalski’ said Kowalski, answering the phone to Stoker.

  ‘Well good evening Chief, this is Frank Stoker, reporting in.’ Replied Stoker.

  ‘Holy hell, Stoker, you’re alive. I damn well thought you were dead. Where the hell have you been?’

  ‘Hey chief, no blasphemy, remember? Did you miss me?’ Replied Stoker, coolly.

  ‘Dammit Stoker, answer the question. I was… uhh.… People.. were worried about you.’

  Stoker realised the chief had been worried. Stoker saw Kowalski as something of a father figure, (although they were clearly from different gene pools: Stoker was huge, dark, and lean. Kowalski was compact, fair, and circumcised.) He hadn’t realised that Kowalski had felt the same. This was a mutual respect and admiration that was unequivocally platonic. There were absolutely no romantic undertones.

  ‘Jesus, chief, it was close call. Magnelli had me tortured but I managed to escape. Look, chief, this thing goes deeper than I thought. Seems as though the Mayor is caught up in it, and Magnelli is working somehow with Johnny Spang…’

  Kowalski rudely interrupted. ‘Johnny Spang the Shanghai crime boss?’

  ‘The very same, chief.’

  ‘Christ. We got a real problem here Frank.’

  ‘Don’t I just know it chief’ replied Stoker, who knew it.

  ‘I think you need to come in, Stoker, so I can protect you.’

  Stoker spoke coolly. ‘Dammit chief, I don’t trust anyone to protect myself except myself…that’s just the way I’ve always been, since I was a kid.’