by Barber, Tom
He was wrong.
The leader of the other gang, the Irish guy, threw the first punch.
It was a wild right hook, the shot that had started pretty much every street fight in history. That or the head-butt. The guy pushed his considerable bodyweight and muscle-mass behind it and swung with all his strength, trying to take Farrell’s head off. No technique, just pure and brutal power, a haymaker, swinging for the fences. If it connected, it would have done some considerable damage.
But Farrell saw it coming. It was so telegraphed, he probably could have spotted it from New Jersey. He swayed to the side and threw a cover hand up, blocking the punch. He propelled his bodyweight forward in the next instant, firing back his own overhand right that hammered into the other man’s jaw. The punch mashed the Irish guy’s lips into his teeth, and he staggered back from the blow as Farrell followed it up with a left hook that also connected, sending him back. That lit the dynamite, and beside them everyone else started brawling.
The guy across from Archer suddenly snapped his big hand forward and grabbed the smaller man’s collar with his right hand, gripping it tight. Archer knew what the guy was planning. He would hold him with one hand and beat his face relentlessly with the other, like a club, using his strength to his advantage. Pound on him until he decided to let go, until Archer’s face was a pulpy, bloody mess or when he was unconscious. Probably both. The bigger man knew the strength he possessed and he would use it to smash the smaller man. No need for technique. Sheer power would be enough.
But the guy had made a mistake.
He’d extended his arm.
Check.
Archer reacted fast. He slammed the guy’s arm up hard with his left palm, hard enough to get out of his grip. In the same moment, he threw his body forward, wrapping his right arm around the guy’s neck, tight under his chin. The big guy had the power, but Archer had the speed. He ducked his head under the guy’s shoulder in the same motion and locked the fingers of his right hand on his left bicep. He put his left arm to the guy’s forehead and started to squeeze, his grip as tight as a vice, strangling the guy’s neck like there was a snake wrapped around it going for the kill. A front-on choke, an arm-triangle, applied in less than a second.
Checkmate.
He’d taken the big guy by surprise and he started trying to fight his way out of it. He was as strong as an ox, but it wasn’t happening. He wasn’t getting out. Now his strength advantage meant shit. Archer was strong for his size, and he cinched it tighter, squeezing his arms, his grip locked up and secure. He heard the guy gargling as the choke-hold took away his oxygen, thrashing and scrabbling as he tried to escape. He was going out. Archer tightened the choke.
As he squeezed his arms as hard as he could and kept his head to the guy’s massive shoulder, Archer saw Farrell and the two other guys had knocked their opponents down, continuing to beat on them on the sidewalk. Across the street, he heard people shouting, calling from them to break it up, some of them probably calling the cops.
But he ignored them all and looked over at the woman.
He couldn’t believe it.
Two of the guys had gone for her. Two-on-one, and the one was a woman.
But she hadn’t opted to use the gun in her waistband.
Instead, Archer saw that one of them was out cold, face down in the gutter, motionless. He wasn’t even twitching. He watched her block a punch from the other guy and moved in close, clasping her hands behind his neck in a clinch. She pulled his head down and then started firing hard and vicious knees into his chin, one after the other, the guy’s face taking each one like a sledge-hammer, smashing his nose and cheekbones as he tried to fight his way out of it. She was relentless, a perfect balance of ferocity and technique. He took about nine or ten of her knees then collapsed out of her grip to the pavement, his face a bloody mess, his eyes rolled back in his head.
At that same moment, Archer felt the big guy in his choke give a final thrash and gargle, then he sagged and a shitload of slack bodyweight suddenly weighed down his arms. He wasn’t faking it. The big guy was out. Archer eased him to the concrete, which was no easy task. Dropping him meant the guy could hit his head on the stone and Archer didn’t fancy a murder charge.
And before the others could react, he grabbed his wallet and I.D from where Farrell had dropped them on the sidewalk and took off across the street, sprinting hard. There was a saying with any street fight that the loser went to hospital whilst the winner went to jail, and he didn’t fancy being around for when the cops showed up.
As he crossed the street and headed down a side road, he heard a shout from behind him.
‘Hey!’
He turned, ready to fight, expecting the foursome to have chased him.
But they were walking fast up Ditmars, headed the other way and putting distance between themselves and the bar.
None of them were pursuing them.
At the end of the street, Farrell had stopped. Archer watched him pause, thinking.
Then the big man raised a hand in an acknowledgement.
‘Thanks,’ he called.
Archer looked at him for a moment, and nodded back.
Then he turned on his heel and walked off swiftly down the street, disappearing into the night.
THREE
At 10 am the next morning, Archer pulled open the front door to an apartment building across Astoria, having just showered and dressed. He pulled it closed behind him quietly and took in his first breath of fresh morning air.
It was another beautiful day in New York City, the sun warm, the sky blue, not a whisper of wind in the air. He was dressed in a navy blue and white flannel shirt over a white t-shirt and faded jeans, light clothing, not enough to make him sweat but little enough to keep him cool. He slid a pair of sunglasses resting on his towel-dried hair down over his nose and walked forward through a small metal gate. Pulling it open and then pulling it back in place behind him, he stepped out onto the sidewalk and looked each way down 38th Street, left and right.
It was quiet. There were a few people walking down the sidewalk, most of them pulling small metal carriages packed with groceries, but everything was still and calm. He could hear birds chirping and tweeting in the trees that lined the street, and the faint shouting and drilling of workmen digging a hole somewhere nearby. Turning right, he started walking down the sidewalk towards the end of 38th Street, and the turn to 30th Avenue.
From the apartment he’d just left, he had two choices of subway trains to take. The R train was five minutes away to the left, up on Steinway Street, and the N train ran from the bottom of the hill on 30th Avenue to the right, slightly further away. He wasn’t in a hurry, so he opted for the N. It was also over-ground for the first half of the journey, and provided a far better view than the dark tunnels and passages of the underground R service. On a morning as beautiful as this, it would have to be the N, no question.
He walked to the end of 38th Street, and turning left, started to wander down the hill. 30th Avenue was a great stretch of neighbourhood, one of the best in the outer boroughs in Archer’s opinion. It had everything. As he walked down, he saw cafes, markets, different kinds of stores. Across the street, he saw people sitting outside a restaurant, enjoying a relaxed morning brunch and each other’s company. It was a great place to live. He remembered being told once that Astoria contained the biggest population of Greeks in the world outside of Greece itself. The area certainly had a relaxed European feel to it, and definitely had the quality of food.
He made his way down the seven blocks to the subway. It was busier on 30th than it had been on 38th Street, and he saw people formally dressed in suits headed in the same direction towards the station. The rail line itself ran horizontal to the street, looming over 31st Street, and served as direct passage to either the east and Ditmars Boulevard or the west and Manhattan. As he approached the stairs that led up to the station and platforms up above, he heard a Manhattan-bound train arriving, moving into the 30th
Avenue station from Astoria Boulevard. He jogged briskly up the steps, pulling a yellow Metrocard from his pocket, and swiped his way through the turnstiles as the train rattled into the station above. He ran up the second flight of steps and arrived on the platform just as the train screeched to a halt. The doors opened, and he stepped past people departing the carriages, moving inside one and joining scores of people already inside. Judging by their clothing, most of them seemed to be headed for work. He took up a position by one of the doors, and turning, watched the carriage next door.
He wanted to get a good look at the guy following him.
He’d picked up the tail the moment he’d turned off 38th. The guy had been waiting for him outside a restaurant across the street, pretending to read a paper. He was sloppy, and had picked a bad spot for surveillance. It was a 50/50 chance that Archer would come this way and not head up Steinway. But then again, there was probably someone else waiting for him up there doing the same thing. The guy been almost directly in Archer’s line of sight, an amateur mistake, and behind his sunglasses Archer had seen the man rise from his chair and start to move down the hill the opposite side, watching his mark.
Right on cue, he saw the guy appear, running up the steps, out of breath, and moving forward to just make it inside the carriage next door, jamming his arm in the sliding doors as they closed and then pulling them open and dragging himself inside. Archer examined him quickly before the guy relocated him. He was one of the men from the group at the bar last night.
Not Farrell.
Not the man with longer hair.
The third guy, shaved head and tattoos on his forearms, the one who had been the first to spot the six guys coming down the street. He saw him looking around, trying to relocate his mark, and Archer turned his back, feeling the man’s gaze fall on him. He didn’t move. There was no point trying to lose him yet. The trip into the city would take about twenty minutes and he didn’t want to alert the guy that he knew he was there.
The train moved off towards the next stop, the streets rolling past down below through the windows. The carriage Archer was standing in was busy, full of people headed to the office, crossing off another day, another step closer to the weekend. People were sitting and standing everywhere, listening to music through headphones, reading newspapers, sipping coffees and tapping into cell-phones or just looking out of the window, lost in thought. Archer wasn’t impressed to see a number of seats occupied by men as women in heels stood nearby, clutching the rail, some of them fighting to keep their balance. None of the guys on the benches seemed to care though, and he swallowed down his irritation. A small thing, but something that always pissed him off when he saw it. Unlike him, he guessed some guys just didn’t give a shit when it came to stuff like that.
The train slowed and came to a halt at the next stop, Broadway. Archer realised the guy next door had no idea where he was getting off. He contemplated deceiving him by stepping outside then back in at the last moment, but decided against it. The guy didn’t know he’d been made. It would make it easier to lose him when they got to Manhattan, and would avoid a confrontation that Archer could do without. The doors closed and the train pushed on, stopping twice more at 36th and 39th Avenue before swinging a right hook and approaching Queensborough Plaza, the eastern side of Manhattan coming into view up ahead across the East River.
Looking around the carriage to pass the time, he saw a young boy sitting on one of the blue benches, his father standing over him, both in jeans and polo shirts. The kid was no older than five or six but they were already the spitting image of each other, and the boy looked excited as if they had something fun planned for the day, an outing or maybe just a chance to spend time with his father. Archer watched him. His shoelaces were untied, and they swung back and forth in the air as the train moved and slowed, the plastic tips occasionally brushing the ground. His father realised, and knelt down, tying them up, keeping his balance as the train started to slow. Archer smiled, then swallowed and averted his gaze.
There were more people waiting on the platform here, as there always were. Queensborough Plaza was where the N and Q line met the 7 train, the line that ran through all the other neighbourhoods in Queens. The doors opened and everyone on the platform moved inside, the carriage becoming even more crowded, everyone packed in together, the carriage full. Eventually, the doors closed again and the train rolled on. He saw people making last minute texts or ending calls on cell phones. They were about to go into the tunnel, under the river, heading towards 59th Street and Manhattan, and all cellular service would cut out shortly.
The train entered the tunnel and rumbled and rattled on through the darkness. Despite the crowd around him, the sudden change in light made him realise how clean the train was. Archer had seen photos from the 80’s and early 90’s of the NYC MTA subway system. Graffiti, dirt, scores of homeless people, murders, intimidating gangs waiting for prey and chances to mug passengers. This was a marked change. He’d read in the paper that Mayor Giuliani had cleaned up the streets and the city’s transport system during the last decade after 9/11 and he’d done a great job. Archer could think of only one better system that he had used in his lifetime, and that was the subway in Washington D.C. That was about as good as it got. Carpets, no music, no food, everyone sat pretty much in silence, everything clean, no trash. But then again, the New York MTA ran all night, which drew the two just about even.
After another minute or so, the train rolled into 59th Street and Lexington Avenue, the darkness of the tunnels suddenly illuminated by the lights of the station at they flashed past the windows. The train slowed as a female voice announced the station over the train’s intercom system, then eventually pulled to a halt, the brakes screeching and stopping the train with an operatic crescendo. The doors opened, and the carriage suddenly started to empty, pretty much everyone inside getting off. Archer saw the boy climb off the bench and grab his father’s hand and the two of them joined everyone else exiting the train. The sudden increase in room was pleasant, and Archer saw the few people left inside the carriage visibly relax like himself, enjoying getting their personal space back. After another moment, the doors shut, and the train moved on.
They stopped three more times, at 5th Avenue, 57th Street and 7th, and 49th Street before the train pulled into Times Square 42nd Street. This station was the central transport hub in Midtown Manhattan, conjoining a series of various subway and transport lines from all sorts of different paths and routes through the city. After the train stopped and the doors opened, Archer stepped out and began walking briskly through the crowd down the platform, headed towards the stairs. He didn’t need to look behind him. He knew the guy would be following. He jogged up the steps, quick enough to move up them swiftly but not fast enough to alert the man following him that the game was up.
But the moment he reached the upper tier, he moved fast, gaining some distance. He rushed through a winding turnstile and walked swiftly towards the stairs, taking them two at a time and coming out on the corner of 42nd Street and 7th Avenue.
Up on the busy street, he moved through the crowds of people, ducking into a store to the left of the stairs that led down to the subway. It was some kind of hat-store, all sorts of caps and beanies sitting on racks lining the shelves. He grabbed a navy blue baseball cap from a shelf and moved to the back, pulling it over his head. Taking cover behind a rack, he looked around it and waited.
The guy appeared, rushing up onto the street level from the stairs, looking side-to-side as he searched for any sign of Archer. It was no use. He’d lost him. After a few more moments, Archer watched the guy curse to himself then visibly give up, disappearing from view as he returned down into the subway, probably headed back to Queens. Taking no chances, Archer moved to the counter and bought the cap. Ripping off the tag, he pulled it back over his head, took off his flannel shirt and then ducked out of the left side of the store, moving fast down 42nd towards 8th Avenue. As he passed two large cinemas, one either side of the
street, he checked behind him to make sure the guy hadn’t picked him up again, the peak of the cap low, hiding his face, the sunglasses hiding his eyes. This detour would add to his journey, but he wanted to make sure he’d lost the guy for good.
Once he got to 8th, he crossed the street and ducked into a pizza place on the corner opposite the Port Authority Bus Terminal. There were a few stools near the window, and he sat on one, checking the street, waiting for five minutes. The guy didn’t reappear. Archer hung on for a few more minutes, just to make sure he’d ditched the tail, then left the restaurant, crossing the street and walking south. He could see the ugly shape of Madison Square Garden starting to appear up ahead on the corner of 33rd Street. One of the most famous arenas in the world, possibly the most famous, yet it was decidedly unattractive from the outside, looking like a big, muddy, brown doughnut. If it wasn’t for its illustrious history, the place surely would have been demolished and rebuilt a long time ago considering the way it looked from the outside. Crossing the streets, he moved past people gathering on the corner of 35th and turned to his left, headed back towards 7th.
The walk took him about two minutes and he occasionally checked over his shoulder to assure that he hadn’t been picked up again. As he approached 7th, he began to pass a Starbucks coffee shop immediately to his left. After he arrived on the corner of 35th and 7th, he took the cap off his head and looked around. He saw a young black kid walking past, his fingers tapping on some buttons as he played some kind of video game.