The Foot Post

Well, now I knew who Razor was, David Tso. The ex-leader of the Gray Eagles. They all had these tough names, or secret names or other childish nonsense. I didn t have time to find out everybody s gang name, David Tso, or Gilly Rodriquez identified them well enough for me.

Gilly had his head stuffed in the crack between the window and the door, so he didn t see the activity when it began. And it began with a flourish. A body flew from left to right, across my field of vision, about four doors down, on our side of the street. The body went from where it had emerged from the line of store fronts, about five feet off the ground, sailing over the sidewalk to land on the hood of a car parked at the curb. Next to that car, double parked in the street, was the black Honda. That sent a chill up my spine.

The body lay quietly on the hood, (where had I seen this picture before?). Then it dawned on me which storefront doorway this guy had just been launched from. Chung s Tai Kwon Do Academy.

"2496, I need assistance here at 6625 north on Clark. There s a major gang disturbance happening here, Squad." I tried to sound calm and professional, but I was trying to run and drag Gilly along with me, while I was calling for help.

"All units STAND BY!" I heard him say. "All units, we have an officer in need of assistance...." I tuned him out, if help came fine, right now I was nearing the school and another body came flying out. It was Chung. He had managed to hold onto his stick when they tossed him out the door. Actually the door was still closed, the glass was missing, apparently taken out by the first person to be thrown out of the school. Three dark clothed figures came out after the old man. He fought them from where he lay on the ground.

Chung was unbelievable. He kicked and twirled, fighting with his feet and the stick, spinning on his shoulders, almost standing on his head. He obviously couldn t stand up. If he had been able to, he surely would have made short work of these gang bangers. He kept the three off of him, each receiving blow after blow, but I couldn t see how the old man could hold out much longer.

When I finally managed to drag Gilly, fighting and screaming, over to where Chung lay on the sidewalk, I got a better grip on him. There was glass all over the ground and I hoped that I wouldn t fall. Sure. Putting my left arm up under his cuffs, I grabbed his collar and had a useful shield for my left side. The first blow that he received was a karate kick, it rocked us both and I was glad that he had taken the brunt of it.

Taking my stick in my right hand, I struck out over Gilly and effectively used him to push back the three attackers. I now saw them to be all Asian, one of them was Key, the L.S.D. freak. The one that had landed on the car hood, probably launched there by Chung, came back to life and soon they were moving into position to surround us. Chung was on the ground behind me, I kept moving Gilly around to keep them off of us.

Gilly took a few more kicks and punches from the two on my left, and I poked my stick into the face of the third. Gilly started to sag, I think that they enjoyed kicking him as much as trying to get to me. I didn t mind, except that Gilly was getting quite heavy now, he was a junkie and weighed almost nothing, but my arm was tiring.

I had forgotten about a possible driver of the black Honda, but Chung hadn t. He let out a string of what sounded like curses and the direction of his ire caused me to look away from my four immediate attackers, to the street.

Inon Moon, or Tae Cho Han as he was apparently known in North Korea, stood there in the street between the parked cars and the Honda. He still looked like he d been living in a sewer and he had one of those square looking little machine guns in his hands. He was pointing it right at us.

Moon said something I didn t understand and our four attackers backed away, obviously moving out of the line of fire. I dropped the night stick and tried to pull the .44 mag, but he had me dead. He had us all dead.

Just then Master Chung, and I will call him Master from now on, let loose with one of those scary karate yells. It froze Moon for a split-second, which was long enough for the man who had killed dozens in death matches. Master Chung took his walking stick and broke it in half. Actually it only looked to me as though he had broken it in two, it was designed to come apart. There was now a thin blade protruding from the end of the walking stick.

Master Chung was injured and couldn t get up, but that didn t mean that he wasn t deadly. The sharp point gleamed in the street light. Things happened fast, but the events burned into my memory. The old man said something that sounded like the equivalent of spitting on the ground.

All in the same split second, he threw the spear, that s what it had become, straight at Moon s face. I could almost trace it s path to where it would plunge into Moon s eye. I knew that they could create anything they wanted in Hollywood, make superhuman feats look natural, but there was no film editor on the street that day. I m still not sure that I believe what I saw.