dropkickers do, to visualize your foot passing completely through the recipient’s crotch to an imaginary point a foot above and beyond it. This follow-through method allows the full kinetic energy of the kicker’s blow
the echelon vendetta | 47
to be passed efficiently to the meatier parts of the kickee’s crotch, with truly gratifying—at least to the impartial observer—results.
In this particular case Milan rose upward off the ground a couple of feet and balanced for a moment like an Olympic gymnast on Dal-ton’s outstretched leg while he emitted a kind of teakettle squeal through his clenched teeth before tumbling off Dalton’s foot and forming himself into the skewered-shrimp position that one traditionally assumes after one has been forcefully booted in the nuts.
Gavro, unfazed, came in silent and fast with his knife in a sweeping throat-level sideways slash from left to right that would have opened up Dalton’s neck like the lid of a Pez dispenser if Dalton had not stepped inside the arc of the attack, catching Gavro’s knife arm with his left hand while using the butt of his right hand and the full force of his body from the toes up to deliver a sharp rising blow to Gavro’s upper lip and nose that, if executed properly, shatters the bone and cartilage of the nose with sufficient force to drive the whole detached mass of bone chips, splinters, and cartilage right through the nares and pharynx and deep into the brain. The blow is designed to be fatal, and Dalton meant it to be fatal.
Gavro went reeling backward, his limp body hitting the Doge’s cobblestones like a burlap sack full of fresh guts. Dalton stepped lightly around Gavro’s limp body, stooping to pick up the weapon Gavro had been carrying, which turned out to be a very expensive Serbian switchblade with a wonderfully carved ivory hilt, which he slipped into the pocket of his trench coat. He walked over and stared down at Milan’s white sweating face and his wide blinking eyes gleaming in the moonlight, fully aware of the profound silence that was coming from the huddled masses under the cloister. He crouched down beside Milan and asked Milan in a kind of whispering purr what his favorite show tune was.
Milan, distracted by some pressing internal issues, stared up at him. Dalton asked the question again, this time in his best Alan Rickman
48 | david stone
drawl: “What’s your favorite show tune, Milan? We marigolds just
love show tunes. Come on, bunnykins. Won’t you tell me yours?”
“Fuck ...you... faggot.”
“ ‘Fuck You, Faggot’? Don’t know it. Now I really like ‘People . ’ You know, from Hello, Dolly ? Barbra sings it. It goes something like this.”
Dalton straightened up, set himself.
“People” —he slammed a vicious boot into Milan’s sagging belly— “ People who need people. ” With each people Milan got another brutal kick in the guts, Dalton moving around the man writhing on the ground like a dancer, singing the chorus aloud, puffing hard with each blow, “are the luckiest people in the world—”
“Hey, man,” a slightly strangled male voice called from out of the darkened cloister. “Leave ’im alone, okay? He’s fuckin’ done!”
Dalton stopped, looked down at Milan, who was curled up in a ball and chuffing like a cow about to calve. Tears were running down his cheeks and his mouth was full of blood.
“ Are you ‘fuckin’ done,’ Milan? Or do you have a comment?”
Milan seemed to be struggling to find one of those Noe .. l Coward lines that would bring the house down but in the end he had to settle for a throat-clearing gargle followed by an attempt to spit in Dal-ton’s face that ended up with a bloody gob of it running down his own cheek. Dalton waited for a polite interval to see if Milan had anything illuminating to add.
“Okay,” he said, straightening up. “Let me get that for you.”
Dalton gauged his angle and then kicked Milan very hard in the center of his face,
the echelon vendetta | 47
to be passed efficiently to the meatier parts of the kickee’s crotch, with truly gratifying—at least to the impartial observer—results.
In this particular case Milan rose upward off the ground a couple of feet and balanced for a moment like an Olympic gymnast on Dal-ton’s outstretched leg while he emitted a kind of teakettle squeal through his clenched teeth before tumbling off Dalton’s foot and forming himself into the skewered-shrimp position that one traditionally assumes after one has been forcefully booted in the nuts.
Gavro, unfazed, came in silent and fast with his knife in a sweeping throat-level sideways slash from left to right that would have opened up Dalton’s neck like the lid of a Pez dispenser if Dalton had not stepped inside the arc of the attack, catching Gavro’s knife arm with his left hand while using the butt of his right hand and the full force of his body from the toes up to deliver a sharp rising blow to Gavro’s upper lip and nose that, if executed properly, shatters the bone and cartilage of the nose with sufficient force to drive the whole detached mass of bone chips, splinters, and cartilage right through the nares and pharynx and deep into the brain. The blow is designed to be fatal, and Dalton meant it to be fatal.
Gavro went reeling backward, his limp body hitting the Doge’s cobblestones like a burlap sack full of fresh guts. Dalton stepped lightly around Gavro’s limp body, stooping to pick up the weapon Gavro had been carrying, which turned out to be a very expensive Serbian switchblade with a wonderfully carved ivory hilt, which he slipped into the pocket of his trench coat. He walked over and stared down at Milan’s white sweating face and his wide blinking eyes gleaming in the moonlight, fully aware of the profound silence that was coming from the huddled masses under the cloister. He crouched down beside Milan and asked Milan in a kind of whispering purr what his favorite show tune was.
Milan, distracted by some pressing internal issues, stared up at him. Dalton asked the question again, this time in his best Alan Rickman
48 | david stone
drawl: “What’s your favorite show tune, Milan? We marigolds just
love show tunes. Come on, bunnykins. Won’t you tell me yours?”
“Fuck ...you... faggot.”
“ ‘Fuck You, Faggot’? Don’t know it. Now I really like ‘People . ’ You know, from Hello, Dolly ? Barbra sings it. It goes something like this.”
Dalton straightened up, set himself.
“People” —he slammed a vicious boot into Milan’s sagging belly— “ People who need people. ” With each people Milan got another brutal kick in the guts, Dalton moving around the man writhing on the ground like a dancer, singing the chorus aloud, puffing hard with each blow, “are the luckiest people in the world—”
“Hey, man,” a slightly strangled male voice called from out of the darkened cloister. “Leave ’im alone, okay? He’s fuckin’ done!”
Dalton stopped, looked down at Milan, who was curled up in a ball and chuffing like a cow about to calve. Tears were running down his cheeks and his mouth was full of blood.
“ Are you ‘fuckin’ done,’ Milan? Or do you have a comment?”
Milan seemed to be struggling to find one of those Noe .. l Coward lines that would bring the house down but in the end he had to settle for a throat-clearing gargle followed by an attempt to spit in Dal-ton’s face that ended up with a bloody gob of it running down his own cheek. Dalton waited for a polite interval to see if Milan had anything illuminating to add.
“Okay,” he said, straightening up. “Let me get that for you.”
Dalton gauged his angle and then kicked Milan very hard in the center of his face,
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