Fist First

by Nigel Mustard

  He had stopped by his mistress Loretta’s house on the way home for a three course dinner.

  Starter: Kissing.

  Main course: Drugs.

  Dessert: Sex.

  Their bodies had entwined like sordid serpents. Crawford’s Irish body enveloped hers like a tree’s roots grow round a fence in a Kentucky garden. He was in love with Loretta Jones. She was the one bright light in his life. His family life had suffered from his commitment to his work – what he termed in the press as his love for the city, but in reality, in real life – really – what this meant was his love for cold, hard, cash.

  They say money makes the world go round. Hell, they ain’t often wrong.

  Crawford had been one year into his Esteemed Mayorship before he realised just how much money could be made by approving the right contracts and crushing the right bills after they made it to City Hall.

  It had started as a favour for his old drinking buddy.

  Crawford, being of Irish descent, abused alcohol from an early age. Patrick McGonahal had asked Crawford to back a contract which would save McGonahal’s company, and keep putting food (traditional Irish fare) on the table.

  It was a no brainer. What kind of a man wouldn’t help an old friend out? Plus, he knew McGonahal could be trusted to do a good job for the city of New York. It was only when he returned home after rubber stamping the project that he found dollars to the tune of $50,000 (fifty thousand!) dollars in an envelope on his doormat. The card simply read:

  ---

  Thanks Mayor Crawford for your kind assistance – this just a little token of our appreciation.

  McGonahal Building Business Ltd

  ---

  You didn’t need to be a damn detective to work out what had happened. That started a ball rolling. A large and fearsome ball. A ball that would soon become so swollen as to cause great pain.

  Within another year, Crawford was connected to ‘The Mafia’ – an Italian gang of ill repute – and approving or denying contracts, pushing and pulling bills out of City Hall, and hiring and firing people based only on orders from ‘The Mafia’.

  What the uninitiated fail to understand about ‘The Mafia’ is that they are extremely vicious. They’ll kill you as soon as look at you, if you don’t like Frank Sinatra or eat spaghetti noodles. They subscribe to a policy of ‘Omega’, which translates as ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’. Anyone who breaks Omega gets their testicles and their Johnson torn off. Doesn’t matter whether you’re a shepherd or an emperor.

  In short, the Mafia do not care if you are white, black, yellow or brown (although history has shown that, if pushed, they favour whites and yellows) – they only care about money, and honour. And broads, and horse racing. And food. And, of course, Omega.

  With the Mafia’s help, Eddie Crawford’s approval rating went through the roof as the country climbed out of the recession. He was popular with the unfairly maligned Wall Street Bankers because he lobbied for complicated tax breaks for city traders. He was popular with the immigrants because he diverted some of his criminal proceeds to build schools in deprived areas – a calculated play. And he was popular with the Irish because he was one. (An Irish). In short, up until 6 months ago, Crawford had been living the Life of Riley – he was due to retire soon, and he had a nest egg that was more like an ostrich or dinosaur egg than a farmyard chicken or wild duck egg.

  Yes indeed, all was rosy until 6 months ago.

  Something happened half a year ago that changed everything…

  6 months ago, the previous Mafia boss of New York, Willie Manioso, was brutally murdered along with his five children and overweight but attractive young wife. A car pulled up beside them at stop sign, and two men with Tommy Guns greeted them in the worst possible way – with a hail of bullets that perforated their faces, stomachs, and legs with uncountable bullets. 361 bullets in total, surmised the coroner (who was utterly bald), spread across the seven people in the car. That worked out as almost 52 bullets per person, and although Manioso had personally taken close to 180 bullets, it was widely agreed that even 30 bullets per person for the rest of the car was simply too many bullets… a diabolical crime.

  Crawford had enjoyed a calm and mutually beneficial relationship with Manioso. You could talk to him - he was a businessman first and a Mafiaman second. He respected peace, and expected everyone he dealt with to get rich alongside him. Well, that suited Crawford down to the ground. News of Manioso’s death concerned him.

  The Mafia worked like most snakes. Chop off its head, and it soon grows a new one to replace it. And this head might be deadlier and more venomous than the last. Of course, it figures that the new head might also be more compassionate and/or less inclined to racketeering, but history has shown us that the former situation is more likely.

  This new snake’s head was called Thomas Magnelli. He had a reputation for being a murderous, ambitious psychopath. Crawford joked with good humour that this would make him fit in well at City Hall. The people he told that to laughed very much because it was very humorous and quite clever wordplay.

  But the jokes soon stopped when Magnelli sent his Jap bodyguard Hitoshi over to Crawford’s house and sliced up his two prized possessions – pedigree Shitzu dogs, Romeo and Juliet. Crawford’s wife, a sandy haired, moderately attractive woman, had come home to find the dogs in a hundred pieces around the house. A note was left on the kitchen table.

  ---

  Crawford,

  Nothing stops, but everything changes. Your cut is halved. Tell the cops and it’ll be your kids who are next to be julienned. Any questions?

  Thomas Magnelli, King of New York

  ---

  Of course, Crawford’s wife was hysterical. No woman would be expected to read a note like that without breaking down. But tellingly, even Crawford, a man, cried tears of terror when he came home.

  The six months since had been a blur. His wife and kids barely talked to him, and the pressure from Magnelli was relentless. He spent the day doing deals and trying to keep the books clean with Magnelli’s lawyer. He spent the evenings with Loretta, before spending restless nights worrying about the Mafiamen. Rinse. Repeat. Cycle. Rinse. Wash. Dry. Rinse. Repeat. That was his life now.

  His cellphone buzzed, bringing him back to the present, and he read a text from Loretta before getting out of the car.

  ‘Nice 2 c 2nite baib – c u swn xx’

  Normally, Loretta’s insistence on using ‘textspeak’ made him smile, even though it drove him crazy when his kids did it. But now there was only the opposite of a smile – a frown.

  He should have been worried about his daughter – but because he was a low-down chicken he was more concerned about himself.

  Missing that payment to Magnelli was stupid. But Crawford was also addicted to gambling, and was deep in the hole with an illegal casino up in Brooklyn. He thought he had been wiser to pay off his bent croupier rather than the City’s mob boss.

  Crawford knew that Magnelli would be pissed, but not this pissed. He’d made the payment in the end, but was just a week late. Seems that he’d underestimated the cruelness of Thomas Magnelli, the King of New York.

  He went inside his house, poured himself a large glass of alcohol and went upstairs to bed.

  Mayor Eddie Crawford was in trouble.

  Oh yes. Trouble.

  Chapter 10.

  Stoker cracked his knuckles and gazed out of the greasy window in his apartment. He tried to concentrate on the book he was reading – a book called ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ – a piece of literature written by English poet Charles Dickens. He had been thinking about Crawford’s daughter all day, and had come to the conclusion that she didn’t deserve to die just because her damn father was a dumb asshole. He’d also been thinking about the curves of her body – hell, he was a red blooded male.

  He had to see her.

  He left his flat at 10.42pm and caught the night bus over town to her place. (He had found out her address earlier that day in an uni
mportant and herewithin undocumented series of developments.)

  He arrived at near midnight. He’d picked up a single red rose from a rude but harmless immigrant who had been selling them for a buck a pop. Stoker had handed him two bucks with an easy coolness that the immigrant had been surprised by.

  ‘Shit, meestar – it’s only one buck a flow-aaah!’

  ‘Hell, keep it buddy. You need it more than me’ said Stoker, in a manner that was revealingly generous.

  ‘Me thanking you meestar!’ thanked the immigrant, gratefully, bowing and stepping backwards deferentially.

  Stoker smiled at the goofiness of buying a flower for a broad who he’d met only once and was less than half his age. He didn’t claim to be a damn expert with the ladies, but he had had over 500 women, most more than once. Stoker didn’t like to count – he found the act of counting sexual conquests both desperate and cheap. But last time he did count, he had had sex with over 515 women in total and… well, you get the picture.

  He was surprised by the colour of her front door, which, interestingly, was a bright blue. How odd… not a normal colour of a front door. It turned out that this was merely a point of detail, with no further relevance to the future of this story, but certainly a notable point of interest at this point.

  He knocked, three times, hard. The door shook under the weight of his huge hands.

  She answered, once.

  She was wearing a silk slip, with stockings and suspenders. Her hair was combed backwards, almost exactly in the opposite direction away from her face. She had red lipstick on and black mascara. But the sexiest thing she wore was her smile, which seemed to strip naked right in front of Stoker.

  ‘Took you long enough to find me.’ She pouted.

  ‘Hell, it’s a busy job, fighting crime’ he replied, with authority.

  ‘Is that right?’ She tested… one foot curling round the half opened door in invitation.

  ‘Damn right.’ He replied. He had passed the test with flying colours.

  They were on each other like starving dogs. Tearing, licking, sucking and biting each other’s body parts. It wasn’t long before they were docked in ecstatic sex – both climaxing exactly at the same time in rigid unison together as one.

  The second round began straight away. Stoker’s extremely high testosterone levels and level of fitness belied his age. He was capable of performing again, sexually, almost immediately after climaxing.

  This second bout of intercourse was slower, and more sensual. As such, it warrants much more detailed and visceral description.

  Stoker’s wand swelled with the hot red blood that his heart hungrily pumped towards it. As the engorgement intensified under the calm and repetitive stroking from the palm of the girl, her heartbeat increased (from about normal to very fast) and her lips swelled. Her bosom heaved. Her genitals opened like a meadow flower and accepted his stiff member gratefully.

  They rocked in a rhythmic fashion, moving from position to position. They did most of the main positions, including doggy style and missionary. The only music playing was the music of sex. Her stereo was off – it was literally silent apart from the normal sounds you hear during sex.

  Her nails raked down his back, leaving bloody evidence of her pleasure. He moaned. She groaned. The groaning was deeply sexual. The groan of a woman being ravished by a man in total control of his environment. The sort of man with chiselled abdominal muscles and 18 inch biceps. The sort of man with the stamina of a jockey and the body of an Olympic swimmer.

  Later, when discussing the size of Stoker’s penis with her girlfriends, she would describe it as ‘considerable’.

  You get the picture.

  They came together, in orgasm, in coitus, together – alive, aloud, aware – as one – in ecstasy, together – together… in orgasm….

  Stoker had learnt more about her personality in that hour of lovemaking than he could in a year of conversation.

  She pouted at him. ‘Can we go again?’

  ‘Shortly. I just have a few questions first.’

  ‘You know how to make a girl wait.’ She pouted.

  ‘I know how to make a girl orgasm.’ He replied, teasing.

  ‘OK, big shot, you’ve already saved my life and given me the best sex I’ve ever had. I guess I can spare you a few minutes for questioning.’ She writhed on the bed like a sock left on the washing line by my ex wife.

  ‘It’s about your father - the Mayor of the City – and what nearly happened to you on the train.’

  Her body tensed, indicating that she wasn’t happy with some or all of the last sentence that had just flown out of the throat of Stoker like an unwelcome pigeon.

  ‘What the hell has he got to do with it?’ She asked.

  ‘I have reason to believe that those punks who tried to mess with you, were Mafiamen, or at least goons, commanded by other Mafiamen.’ He explained, his hand still nestled between the cheeks of her butt, but safely in the erogenous zone of the upper crackline rather than the functional zone further south.

  ‘Why would my father be entangled in a vicious organised crime network like the Italian American mafia? He’s never even met Thomas Magnelli…’ Her words hung in the air like some kid’s kite on a breezy day.

  ‘Who said anything about Thomas Magnelli?’ Stoker declared, triumphantly but not smugly. He had already gleaned the information he needed, and she knew it.

  ‘He… erm… I… wait…’ She spluttered.

  ‘Listen, babe, don’t sweat it. I only want to protect you and serve the city by ousting these creeps. Your dad seems too greedy or stupid to help me. That’s where you come in.’

  Like many women, Chloe was emotionally intelligent, but illogical and incapable of the critical thought readily available to the majority of men. She took a while to piece together what had just happened, but to her credit she did eventually get there.

  ‘I guess you know enough now. I may as well tell you everything I know.’ She relented.

  ‘That’s right babe… but first, I believe we were talking about round three?’

  Remarkably, Stoker was already visibly aroused again, in that his erection was poking out from under the covers like a furtive shark, ruler straight and ruler length.

  Clearly, this was a man who possessed extraordinary sexual prowess, irrespective of his age.

  They had sex again.

  Chapter 11.

  Stoker recited poetry to her while they lay in each other’s arms. She was pleasantly surprised that such a dominant male had a passion for poetry and fine literature.

  ‘You should be into American Gridiron Football or Major League Baseball’ she said. ‘Not girly poetry!’ She playfully bit his shoulder, drawing blood.

  ‘Hmmph. Grown men in costumes chasing after a ball? Not my scene. I’ve boxed. I’ve wrestled. I’m tough, sure. Damn tough. Doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate literature.’

  She sighed. She had never thought about it that way before. Her nubile body writhed next to his.

  ‘So tell me how your pop knows Thomas Magnelli.’ He pressed her for information in the same way he had pressed her body whilst they made love. Rigorously. Devotedly. Powerfully.

  ‘Oh, Daddy has lots of business contacts. He just knows Mr Magnelli through one of his property developments. Daddy knows he’s a bad guy' she said, giggling behind a fan she obviously must have just found somewhere, 'he just has to use people like that to get what the city needs done.’

  ‘And to make himself a damn pretty penny I don’t wonder’ replied Stoker, menacingly.

  Her blue eyes stared back, hurt. He didn’t mean to hurt those eyes, or the broad behind them.

  ‘I’m sorry. I know this isn’t your fault.’

  ‘It’s… It’s OK. I guess I know he isn’t an angel. He meets Mr Magnelli once a week at the Bronco Roadhouse on the South Side. I heard him talking on the phone a week or so ago. Daddy was saying something about a missed payment and needing more time. ‘

  Stoke
r grabbed her shoulders and looked deep into her blue eyes. She lacked intelligence, but damn if she wasn’t beautiful.

  ‘Is there anything else, Goddamit? Anything at all.’

  ‘No I don’t think so. Except…’

  ‘Except what? Except what, Goddamit?’

  ‘He kept saying this funny word which I hadn’t heard before…. It sounded Chinese. It sounded like something a Chinaman might say…’

  ‘Could be Chinese, Korean or Japanese.’ Stoker quickly deduced. ‘Either way, some of the most diabolical gangs in the city are Oriental. This spells trouble. Come on, think – what did it say?’

  Her lack of intelligence was hampering her recollection. ‘Wang? Tang? Kang?’

  ‘My God. Spang?’

  ‘Yeah – that’s it. Spang.’

  ‘Johnny Spang is a known gangster in Beijing City, China. For the past ten years, we’ve just been thankful he hasn’t shown any desire to move his business into the United States of America. If Magnelli is talking about Spang to the Mayor of the City of New York… that can only mean one thing. Looks like we’re about to get served some Chinese takeaway that will leave a very bad taste in the mouth.’ Stoker stood and stretched, impressed by his witty comment even though Chloe had not recognised it. ‘The most important thing in the short term is to keep you safe. You need to come with me now and we’ll get you to a motel.’

  ‘Daddy said some policemen were gonna come and watch over me.’

  Stoker shrugged and laughed demonically. His laughter boomed round her plush apartment. He really was laughing loudly. She joined in, thinking it a game. Then she realised, this was no game. This was real life. This was a deadly game of cat(s) and mouse(s) that might mean the end of her life.

  ‘You just don’t get it, do you? The cops… the mayor… the damn fire service. Magnelli owns it all. I’m the only one you can trust.’

  ‘Oh Frank… I don’t know who the hell I can trust any more… but I can trust you. I just know it. It sounds crazy… but… but…’

  Stoker patted her on the top of the head respectfully. He knew what was coming. He'd heard it dozens of times before.