Wolfe can hear the indrawn breath. Crusher has mild asthma. Any second now.
Crusher launches himself at Wolfe. Wolfe hurls himself at Crusher. Crusher must weigh seventeen stone but Wolfe is no lightweight and he’s a hell of a lot fitter. He has speed on his side and, at the point of impact, it is Crusher, not Wolfe, who is driven backwards. They crash into the sinks and from the grunt of pain Wolfe knows he calculated right and that the metal rim has just done significant damage to Crusher’s kidneys.
No fists. The elbow. A sharp, upward stab, right on to the centre of the mandible, sending a shock sensor up into the cerebellum. Done right, this move can cause immediate unconsciousness, but Wolfe doesn’t quite have the momentum. Though Crusher is stunned, he stays upright. Wolfe slams his left hand, side on, into Crusher’s laryngeal prominence, his Adam’s apple. Now the big man is suffering serious pain and he can hardly breathe.
Shin kick. Groin kick.
Seven and a half – never take off your boots. Never.
Wringer and Slim are coming in fast. Wolfe grabs Crusher by both ears, yanking hard.
Eight – go for soft targets.
There are no rules in street fighting. Wolfe swings the big man round by his ears and into the path of the next. Crusher hits Wringer and they both stagger back. Slim is wary now, knowing what he’s up against. He’s also younger, lighter, fitter than the other two. He throws a punch, another, another. Wolfe dodges, skips from one foot to the other, staying just out of reach. A minute of this and Slim will tire – throwing failed punches takes a huge amount of energy – but he doesn’t have a minute. Crusher and Wringer are getting up. This isn’t the movies and the bad guys don’t wait their turn. Come on, come on, you can’t punch me, you have to – yes!
Nine – get the other guy to kick you.
Kicking is bad news. For the kicker. Kicking throws fighters off balance. Kicking is easy to predict and avoid.
Wolfe grabs Slim’s leg and pulls. Slim loses balance, begins hopping around in a desperate attempt to stay on his feet and it is the easiest thing in the world now to go for his groin. Wolfe kicks hard and Slim is out of the fight.
Ten – it’s not over till it’s over.
Crusher has sneaked around behind and Wolfe finds himself grabbed in a headlock. Wringer is running in. Wolfe jumps, kicking backwards with both feet, and this is his second mistake. Both men pitch forward. They’re going down and Wolfe will be the one underneath. Once a fight goes to the ground, the heavier man nearly always wins.
Hitting the floor almost ends it. Crusher is flat out on top of him. Wolfe can’t draw breath but Crusher has to shift to strike his next blow. He leans away, pulls Wolfe up and turns him over so that he can get at his face. That is his last mistake.
Mountain climbers are always stronger than their build would suggest, they have to be, to haul their own body weight up vertical cliff faces, and much of that strength is in their core. Wolfe’s abdominal muscles are second to none.
Wolfe grabs Crusher’s ears, already sore, and pulls down, simultaneously tensing his oblique muscles and crunching up. His aim is perfect. The ridge of the frontal bone, just below his hairline, strikes down exactly on the bridge of Crusher’s nose. One of the strongest bones in the human body striking two of the most delicate. Blood spatters across Wolfe’s face as Crusher’s nasal bones fracture. Now, at the end of the fight, he risks his fist. A sharp punch to the point just above Crusher’s ear, where the parietal bone meets the temporal bone. This is one of the weaker points of the skull and a recognized pressure point. Crusher slumps. Wolfe rolls and now he is the one on top.
He grabs Crusher by one ear, raises his fist with the other hand and looks at Wringer. ‘One step closer and your boss is picking teeth out of his shit.’
Wringer gets the message. He doesn’t care that much anyway about a couple of fat birds. He steps back, holds up both hands in a surrender gesture. He’s done.
Wolfe grabs both ears again and bangs Crusher’s head down hard.
‘You so much as look me in the eye again and I will cut off your dick and feed it to you. Do you understand, fat boy?’
No response. Another sharp slam of the head. More blood drips on to the tiles.
‘Do you understand?’
A grunt of assent. Wolfe jumps to his feet, looks from Wringer to Slim. The younger man is on his hands and knees now, bleeding from the lip. ‘Same goes for you two. And you, dickhead in the doorway. Have you got it?’
Eyes down. Grudging nods. It’s the best he can hope for. He turns back to Wringer, the only one relatively unscathed.
‘Give me five minutes, then bring them round. Gavin’s lip is going to need two stitches and I can probably set Terry’s nose for him. It’ll be quicker than waiting to go to hospital. And I can give you all something for the pain.’