The Girl with the Pearl Herring. Part 2

The Girl with the Pearl Herring. Part 2

"Arrête la voiture!” shouted Jaques

“What?” Asked Lincoln.

“Arrête la voiture,” Jaques repeated, with even more urgency, “fuck, sorry, I mean stop the car.”

Lincoln pulled over, and before the car had stopped moving JAQUES opened his door, directly into traffic, and got out. He closed the door just before a truck hit it, and began walking back toward the last cross street they had passed.

Lincoln got out of the car and followed in curiosity. JAQUES walked up to a man holding a dog on a leash. The dog was dirty, overly thin, and shied away pitiably when Jaques, a large angry man, walked up. This craven display made JAQUES, incredibly, even angrier. He punched the man full in the face and, after the man fell, wound up with his left foot and kicked the man twice, once in the stomach, and second, lining up like a field goal kicker, squarely in the groin. Not bothering to see the reaction from the man, JAQUES took the dog’s leash and led him to the gray (‘Thunder Grey, you unwashed heathen,’ Lincoln had corrected him at least five times, ‘Thunder Grey.’) car, opened the rear door and encouraged the dog to get in. The dog did, and JAQUES, with far more care this time, opened the passenger door and got in. As Lincoln drove away JAQUES said

“I’ll pay for the cleaning if anything happens.”

“With what money? Silent Walrus,” asked Lincoln. “Besides that dog can turn every square inch of that mahogany leather into brown if that’s his pleasure. I love dogs, and you did dogs work today. See what..”

“You did there?” finished an exasperated Jaques, “Bravo again Lincoln, bra-vo”

“Schvartz,  Schwuchtel, where are you going?” Asked one of the skin heads.

“What did he say?”  Lincoln asked Jaques.

“He called you a nigger, and me a faggot.” JAQUES replied

“Well that’s not nice is it?” Asked Lincoln.

“Not in the least,” said JAQUES, as the two men walked to the middle of the street, “rather rude actually.”

There were four skinheads each with a box cutter that JAQUES was sure had two blades stacked together instead of the customary one. It was a technique pioneered by British football hooligans. It was meant to cut a strip of flesh away rather than just lacerate, and it had stood the test of time so that any boxcutter from Caracas to City Island stood a good chance of having two blades. Both men knew this, but did not know the other man knew so they were focussed on the knife hands above all else.

The skin heads formed up around the men. The original speaker barked

“Schwuchtel, I asked you a question.”

JAQUES looked at the man, wet his forefinger and drew it across his right eyebrow, and in his finest St. Petersburg accent said,

“It will give me so much joy to make you suck my dick.”

Whether or not the skinhead understood the Russian, he recognized the tone; the fight was on.

The skinheads crowded in for intimidation but they became bunched up and crowded one another. The speaker lunged at JAQUES, intent on carving Jaques’ face to shreds, but his anger unbalanced him. JAQUES pummeled him about the head and face, an unrelenting torrent of fists lasting well past the point of unconsciousness. On the other side of the fight, the two skinheads in front of Lincoln formed up and stepped cautiously into an attack. Every time the two knives, four blades, struck Lincoln wasn’t there. Lincoln had no time for games, he was worried about his new friend. After a brutal flow of devastating Krav Maga strikes, dirty tricks, and old school gutter fighting, Lincoln’s opponents were on the ground, unconscious, hands broken. Lincoln turned towards JAQUES prepared to rescue him, or super-glue up nasty lacerations. What he saw instead was the speaker, on the ground and JAQUES repeatedly kicking the other man in the face.

“Break their hands,” said Lincoln

“What?” panted Jaques.

“Break their hands,” Lincoln repeated, slightly louder.

“Oh right,” JAQUES said “Like in that book?”

“Exactly,” said Lincoln, “just like in that book.” wondering what JAQUES was talking about, and if he had it in him.

Jaques did, and he used a technique that Lincoln had never seen before. JAQUES stood on the fingers of each hand and kicked the side of the palm; from the audible snaps, Lincoln deemed it an effective, if brutal, technique.

“Perhaps Tuna,” Jaques said, still breathing hard, “perhaps we should get out of town?  We have eaten and seen the show. We go while your car still can.”

JAQUES motioned to the car and the four more skinheads standing around it.

“Sonovabitch” muttered Lincoln as he started to run towards his car.

The four skinheads paused, gauging Lincoln’s angry approach, for two seconds longer than JAQUES liked and then melted away into the adjoining streets. When Lincoln reached his car he started it and drove slowly to JAQUES.

“Hop in,” he commanded, “we have miles to go before we sleep.”

“Frost?” asked Jack.

“Robert himself,” Lincoln said, “good ole Bobby Lee.”