Kill the King by Eric Samson

other
over a game of cards. They looked comparatively older and far less
athletic, and on the floor surrounding their card table a few
upturned hard hats could be found alongside crushed beer cans and
cigarette butts. The rest of the Fourteens could be spotted on the
other side of the warehouse, hard at work lifting barbells and
punching heavy bags to the sound of skinhead punk rock that blared
from a large boom box. They looked tough, angry, and motivated.
    Among the large
group of men training hard in their makeshift gym was a man who
easily stood apart from all of them: a vicious chiseled specimen,
his skin pale and littered with crudely-etched racist tattoos that
trailed from his throat to his fingertips. He was in the middle of
pummeling the abdomens of two scrawny-looking men, standing at
attention as they accepted their beatings. One was a teenager with
a bruised face, the other a bloodied nose and older-looking. Both
looked terrified. Tyler couldn’t make out what was being said; no
doubt the words used were obscene and threatening. Tyler and
Khaled’s escort gave a loud whistle in his direction. The thug
turned around and nodded, then gave each youth one last punch
before walking away. The young one was knocked out cold with a
savage blow to the chin, the older one slugged so hard in the gut
he fell to his hands and knees and retched all over the floor. The
thug then casually grabbed a towel and walked over to greet Tyler
and Khaled.
    “Hey, fellas! Fellas!” He spoke loudly enough to garner the attention of
his peers, still wiping the blood off his swollen knuckles. The
boom box clicked off and the place went silent.
    “Alright boys,
who ordered take-out? Anyone? Hoo odah fly lice an pohk foh
mista big boss?”
    The crowd
bellowed with laughter at his jape, performed with caricatured
squinted eyes and bared teeth. Tyler and Khaled calmly waited for
the laughter to fade before speaking.
    “Sorry, Ron.
It’s just a briefcase this time.”
    The brute
shrugged in contrived indifference. “Ah well, fuck’em if they can’t
take a joke. How ya been, Charlie Chan? It’s been a while since I
last saw that flat gook face of yours. Sucked any good cock in
prison? I bet you tasted all kinds of chocolate . . .am I
right?”
    Tyler didn’t
take the bait and changed the subject. “I’m fine. Much better than
those guys you just beat up. They must have done something bad to
earn that”.
    “What, those
dumb fucks? Yeah, they earned that beating. They were on a night
hunt with two others, but only they made it back. Two of our
brothers are dead, and whoever killed them got away with it thanks
to these bitches. I had to let them show that kind of shit don’t
fly with me. Can you believe this shit? Fucking pussies.”
    Tyler shrugged.
It was enough of a relief that he wasn’t suspected of anything
yet.
    “They need to
man the fuck up. If they won’t do it by themselves, then with
almighty God as my witness I’m gonna grind their bones into fucking
dust. No one but no one fucks with us without consequence. .
.not anymore. We’re takin’ over this town, brick by brick and dead
nigger by dead nigger. Ain’t that right, boys?”
    The crowd
hollered in approval and set off a frenzy of exchanged Nazi salutes
and the shouting of racist slogans. Ron tossed the bloody towel on
the floor and grabbed a beer from a nearby cooler.
    “You can leave
the briefcase with me. Ali Baba can pick it up tomorrow.”
    Khaled scowled
and took a step forward, but Tyler stuck his arm across his chest
to keep him from taking another one. Like all bullies, Ron enjoyed
taunting people when the odds were stacked in his favour. Khaled’s
temper made him easy prey.
    “I was ordered
to hand it to him only. Not you. Let me see him, or we’re
walking out and taking the briefcase back with us. Metzger will
hold you responsible for this.”
    Ron’s face
darkened. “Yeah, yeah. . .fine. Go ahead, but the terrorist stays
here with me. You don’t