StarFall Comics
A Division of Pullemouttayerhat Productions
A Wholly-Owned Subsidiary of StarFall Innovations
Proudly Presents:
City Streets
#6: FOOD FIGHT!
cover: The kids, sitting around a table, tossing food in each others' faces.
"Thanks for standing up for me," Heather told Allan as they walked along the streets of Queens, "but I'm not so sure you should have. I'm not sure I can trust me."
"Think nothing of it," he told her. "If we're going to pull this off, we have no choice but to trust you."
"thanks a lot," she mumbled, mostly to herself and dropping into a brooding silence.
"Oboyoboyoboy! Real, honest/dishonest, genuine street food!" Josh drooled as they passed a hot dog cart. "Man, I almost forget what it tastes like!"
"Probably concrete and tar," Robin commented. "If you like, we could scrape a cat off the road for you."
"Wrong street food, Rob," Pete piped in. "Rigor Mortus Tortoise is my favorite."
"Disgusting!" she groaned. "You two are making me lose my appetite."
"All the more for us," Pete countered, high-fiving Josh.
"Here we are," Allan told the others, coming to a stop in front of a seedy storefront. From the outside, it looked nothing like a restaurant.
"Are you sure this is the place?" Robin asked, eyeing the building warily. "I mean, it looks more like a storage shed."
"Trust me," Allan told the others. "We'll fit in perfectly here."
As they entered the building, it was as if they'd stepped from the present into the Old West. Everything inside was made out of wood and leather. An old piano sat in one corner of the room.
"Hey, Allan!" a rough craggy voice called out from the bar, "where ya been?"
"Oh no," Allan groaned, wishing he could disappear. A large man, whose face was more hair than anything else, leapt over the bar with an agility belying his bulk, and nearly crushed Allan in a monsterous bear-hug.
"Ol' Jack's missed ya," the man bellowed. "Place ain't been the same without you and yer brother doing that flying knife trick across the bar."
"'Flying knife trick'?" Josh and Robin asked at the same time, giving Allan an amused look.
"This I gotta see," Josh muttered.
"By the way," Jack asked, "where's Joe? You two used to be inseparable."
"A lot's happened," Allan explained. "But I'm trying to put it behind me. Is there a free table anywhere around?"
"Take yer pick. The construction boys have an hour b'fore their lunch break."
"Thanks, Jack." He led the others to a corner booth.
"Where are they?" Lee moaned as she sat in the van, listening to the radio; the only thing, in her opinion, in the van that actually worked. Looking out the rear-view mirror, she noticed a black sedan pull into a parking space and shut off its lights. No one exited the sedan.
I don't like this, she thought as she turned off the radio and adjusted the mirrors to keep a better eye on the sedan.
The first thing the team noticed as the grey suited men entered the bar were the sunglasses. Not one of the five men took them off as they sat in the booth in the opposite corner.
"Pete," Josh said, louder than he needed to, "why dontcha go talk to Jack about some more drinks." He then tapped Robin's knee.
"Hey, Allan," she asked, also louder than neccessary, "where's the powder room in this joint?"
Allan pointed at a door at the far end of the bar. "Right over there."
"I think I'll join you," Heather said, standing up.
"What song, Al?" Josh asked as he headed for the piano.
"D'you know the Fugue?"
"Do I know the Fugue?" Josh asked incredulously. "Do I know the Fugue?! Only a braindead idiot would not know the Fugue."
"I take it that means 'yes'. Go to it."
"Hey, kid," Jack muttered to Pete. "What's going on here."
"See the stiffs in the shades?" Pete replied. "They're kinda looking for us."
"If they're looking for Allan, they've got to be up to no good."
"Whatever you do," Pete advised, "don't go for that shotgun."
"Shotgun my ass," Jack muttered. "That's an AK-47, fully loaded."
Jack loaded up a tray of drinks, making sure to spit in each one without the men in suits noticing. Then he gave Pete a tray of drinks for his table.
As Pete wandered past the other table, he took a look at the men sitting there.
"I saw a few pistols," he told Allan. Josh's playing of Toccata and Fugue ensured them that their conversation was private. "Mostly nine millimeters, although one of them had a .45 in his shoulder holster."
"Recognize any of them?"
"No," Pete replied. "Although they smell like Feds. Or Harnagorn's."
"I wonder what the girls are up to," Allan commented.
Lee was bored, and worried. Nobody had exited the sedan for a half hour, and the hair on the back of her neck felt like it was standing on end. She was half tempted to start the van just to see how the sedan would react. She didn't have to.
Four men, all dressed in grey suits and wearing sunglasses stepped out of the sedan and started walking towards the van.
"Oh, shit," Lee muttered. She started looking around the van for something with which to defend herself. Under the rear seat, she found one of Heather's pump-action shotguns. Luckily, it was loaded.
Robin and Heather had not gone into the restroom for idle conversation.
"Where do you keep all those guns?" Robin demanded. There was an array of small handguns spread out before them.
"When your dad's a base hopper," Heather explained, "one learns to be inconspicuous. Especially when his only daughter's a tomboy."
"So what happened to the old man?"
"He got blown up," Heather stated, a tear forming in her eye. "Now shut up and pick a weapon." She slammed a clip into an Israeli UZI. Robin hesitantly picked up a .38 snub-nose, making sure it was loaded.
"I wonder if they need us yet," Robin mused.
"What's taking the girls so long?" Pete winced as Josh hit a sour note. Something barely audible was cursed from that direction. The restroom door opened, and the girls paused in the doorway, arguing.
"Yeah, right! Like, you're so mature!" Robin upbraided Heather.
"Hey, it's better than your sick little infatuation with Robert Redford!" the redhead shot back.
"One more crack like that, you anorexic cow, and you'll be eating the floor!"
"Right! I'd like to see you try!"
"How about right NOW!!"
With that, Josh spun around on the piano stool, throwing a spike at one of the suits, who's hand had started for his gun. The spike impaled itself in its target's gun hand, causing the agent to drop his gun.
"FOOD FIGHT!!!" Pete yelled, throwing his drink in the face of an advancing agent. The agent also received the mug across his jaw.
Allan and Pete jumped up from the table, lunging for the agents. At the same time, Josh was busy with the impaled agent, sending him sprawling down the bar. Jack clubbed the agent with a beer bottle as he passed.
Robin advanced on one of the agents, kicking his gun out of his hand. She tossed him her gun and roundhoused him as he went to catch it.
"Fell for the oldest trick in the Book of Lee," she muttered, waving a finger in front of his face. "Bruce Lee."
Pete was having trouble with the food-splattered agent. Although his small size was an asset in most fights, the agent was a professional. Pete was currently face down on a table, the agent holding his arm painfully high up his back.
"May I have this dance, sailor?" Heather asked sweetly, tapping the agent on the shoulder. When he turned around, she stuck the UZIs barrel between his teeth.
"Who do you work for?" she asked, all trace of innocence completely gone. "And I must warn you, I have a very itchy trigger finger."
"And a spare gun," Pete said from behind, sticking his revolver in the agent's back.
"Hrnagrn," the agent mumbled, his mouth still stuffed with gun metal.
"That's all I wanted to know." The heel of Heather's hand struck his temple. He fell to the floor, unconscious.
"Hold it right there, pal," Jack called out, pointing his AK-47 in the direction of the remaining agent. "Make a move, and you'll be Swiss cheese."
Allan drew a knife from under the bar, and held it menacingly under the agent's nose.
"How did Harnagorn know we'd be here?" he asked.
"You'll get nothing out of me, punk."
"Gimme that, Allan," Jack demanded. Taking the knife, Jack slipped it under the agent's thigh, applying a dangerous amount of pressure.
"Now, you're gonna answer some questions, or you'll find out what happens for not paying your tab."
The agent slid backwards, dropping to his back and rolling to one knee. He never got his weapon into firing position, as Jack delivered a swift, hard dropkick to his gut.
"Never try that karate crap with an ex-Marine," he stated, putting his foot on the agent's throat. "Now, you will tell us what we want to know."
The restaurant doors opened, and the construction crews came in for lunch.
"Didn't pay his tab?" one of them asked as he went by.
"Somethin' like that," he responded. "So, how did your boss know where my buds'd go?"
"It... was... the... brother," the agent wheezed, gasping for air. Allan's face fell, as he turned away from the agent.
"Joe?" Jack asked the agent. "And how'd you get that information out of him?"
"Joe works for their boss," Allan replied, his back still turned. "He...." He couldn't finish.
"I don't believe it," Jack growled. "You're lyin' ta me!" he told the agent.
"It's the truth," Josh said, placing a hand on Allan's shoulder. "Allan tried to help him, but he was too late."
"Allan, you need anythin', you just ask Ol' Jack, y'hear?" Jack said, just barely able to restrain himself from shooting the agent.
"Thanks, Jack," Allan said, his voice cracking. "There's another one of us. We need to have some food to take to her."
"Let's just dump these pieces of human refuse into the River," Heather said.
"Nah," Jack said. "I have a better idea."
"I tell ya, Jack," said the police officer. "It's sick out there, and getting sicker. We just picked up a group of five wierdos skinny dipping in the Hudson wearing duct tape and panty hose."
"Yeah, well. Things like this are bound to happen," Jack said, wiping down the bar.
"Where were you guys?" Lee demanded as she cranked the van. "I almost flipped when that sedan back there came in. It's a good thing all they wanted were directions to Staten Island." The shotgun was in plain sight beside her seat.
"We ran into some old friends," Robin told her. "And made a new one."
"I don't even want to know." Finally, the van roared to life, and they were under way.