******
New York City: Jokertown
It must have been a tough day at the monastery, Fortunato thought as he awoke and tried to sit up. I hurt all over. He paused, frowning. And my tatami smells like someone’s pissed on it.
He opened his eyes suddenly remembering a fist the size of a small boulder crashing into the back of his head. He sat up, groaning, and looked around. He was no longer in the alley. It was dark and he couldn’t tell exactly where he was, but it didn’t look good and it smelled worse.
After a moment his eyes adjusted to the gloom, and he realized that he was in an abandoned building. Probably not in an interior room because light was filtering through holes in the walls and down through the floors above. It was artificial light, and it wasn’t abundant. The building was apparently located in an area with few functioning streetlights.
Fortunato wasn’t entirely unfamiliar with buildings that looked like they’d gone through the blitz and then been taken over by clans of cave-dwelling troglodytes who weren’t picky about personal sanitation or garbage disposal. When he was a kid he’d often played in similar ruins. Sometimes he and his friends would stumble across drunks and jokers while exploring derelict structures, but such creatures were usually more scared of him than he was of them. Though there had been exceptions.
He swiveled unto his hands and knees, grimacing in disgust at the urine, blood, and come stains on the mattress the Jokka Bruddas had dropped him on. At least, he thought, they didn’t just dump me on broken glass and nail-studded debris. But he wasn’t in the mood to be particularly forgiving to the thugs who’d ambushed, then kidnapped him. He was in the mood to hit back. Hard.
He pushed himself to his feet, swaying as a wave of nausea threatened to overwhelm him.
Concussion, damn it, he thought.
He clenched his teeth and staggered like a drunk, sending bits of building debris and a couple of empty liquor bottles skittering across the floor, eventually colliding against a wall mostly reduced to naked studs. The few wall panels that remained were covered with gang graffiti.
Not much has changed since I was a kid, Fortunato thought. This must be the Bruddas hangout. The center of their turf. The desire to get even with the joker punks was suddenly quenched by the realization that he was in danger. Potentially fatal danger. Got to get out of here.
He pushed away from the wall and stood straight, scowling darkly at nothing. He suddenly realized that he was thinking like the old Fortunato, not the Fortunato who had spent fifteen years trying to learn how to cloak himself in serenity. Worry about that later. Worry now about getting your ass out of here before those punks show up and finish you.
“Well look who’s awake,” a voice said from behind him. “That crazy old Fortunato.”
Too late, he told himself grimly.
Carlos and his gang of tormentors came from somewhere inside the abandoned structure where probably the rooms were intact and the garbage less ubiquitous. Their numbers had been augmented by an extra eight or ten other jokers. Fortunato squinted at them blearily. Some of the newcomers were possibly female.
Ricky, the giant, stooped low so he could get through the doorway into Fortunato’s room. His high voice squeaked something that Fortunato’s still-dazed brain couldn’t quite make out. Most of the others laughed.
“Careful, Ricky,” Carlos said in mock fear. “He’s Fortunato! He’s a mean old ace. Why, my Dad told me that he can fly. He can throw lightning with his hands. Watch out, hermano. All you can do is hit him. Like you done before.”
The girl (at least Fortunato assumed it was a girl) clinging to his arm tittered, and repeated, “Hit him, hit him, hit him!”
The rest of the Bruddas took up the chant. Ricky smiled as he approached, bowing at the waist so his face was almost level with Fortunato’s. Fortunato stood as straight as he could, even though his head whirled with vertigo and he felt like puking. He moved fast and was almost on target. His fist struck the joker in the cheek, and stuck there.
Ricky’s flesh was coated with a layer of slime with the consistency of thick mucilage. Fortunato pulled, and the joker’s skin stretched a good half foot until it was taut, but he couldn’t yank his fist free. Ricky laughed. He grabbed Fortunato around the waist with his titan-sized hands and lifted him high, smashing him against what was left of the room’s ceiling.
Fortunato grunted, absorbing the blow as best he could, though nausea-tinged pain washed through his system like a tidal wave.
“Don’t break him, Ricky,” Carlos said. “Let us play with ‘em, too. We wanna teach the old bastard a lesson. Let us show him who’s the power in J-town, now.”
His fellow gangbangers howled as Ricky tossed him contemptuously to the floor. Fortunato felt glass shards rip his clothes and score the flesh beneath as he skidded half a score of feet to right in front of the Bruddas. He looked up, groaning in pain. All he saw was a sea of horrific faces surrounding him. He knew they were eager for his blood.
“You know what’s funny, old man?” Carlos asked with a mocking smile. He reached into his back pocket and took out a rolled up magazine, an old issue of Aces! Digger, no doubt, Fortunato thought, would be pleased. The joker finally found the page he was looking for, opened the magazine and held it out for Fortunato to see. Fortunato squinted at it, but he couldn’t quite make out the photo. “You are Fortunato.” Carlos looked back and forth from the photo in the magazine to Fortunato, lying in the debris at his feet. “At least, you look like the old motherfucker. Well, whatever.”
Carlos tossed the magazine over his shoulder, where it landed on the floor with the other, less savory garbage.
“It don’ matter,” he said, explaining the situation to Fortunato. “We win, in any case. If you are Fortunato, we beat you until you nice and tender, then we cut you, we cook you, and we eat you.” Carlos smiled. “I get your liver. I hope you not a drinking man, because I like them nice and tender. It’s, like, a sacrament. Body and blood, man. Body and blood. If you not, if you just a crazy old man, we still get a nice meal. See, fucker, any way, we win.”
He drew a knife from a sheath he carried in the small of his back. It wasn’t a fighting knife. It was a filleting knife.
Fortunato tried to stand as they closed around him. He couldn’t rise. His head hurt like a beaten gong. His insides felt wrong where Ricky had squeezed him. All he could do was roll over on his stomach, pull his knees in and cover his head with his arms as the blows started to fall. Some of the jokers kicked him, some beat him with boards and pipes and other handy weapons. He quickly lost track of what was happening as he drowned in an ocean of sudden pain.
I’m Fortunato, he screamed silently. I’m Fortunato. It can’t end like this. Blood thundering in his ears, agony washed across him like a tidal wave. He screamed, “Help me, someone help me.”
As total blackness claimed him, he couldn’t even be sure that he had spoken aloud.