Chapter 9

The Mad Scots had only been in existence for twenty-four hours, but already they were the most feared street gang in London, period. The local Yakuza branch was going to learn that the hard way.

“You know why we’re the toughest bastards you ever saw, Chink?” Stewart McGarrity hauled the Yakuza leader off the grimy alley cobblestones, and dangled him by the collar of his jacket.

“I am Japanese, not Chinese,” the young Yakuza captain said weakly.

McGarrity’s fist slammed into his jaw.

“A Chink is a Jap is a Charlie. You got piss-yellow skin. Why do I care what p’ticular kind of yellow? Now, I asked you a question. Do you know why we’re the baddest bastards in London?”

“No. Why?”

“Because we got a cause. We got something to fight for. All you piss-colored Chinks ain’t got nothing to motivate yer, see?”

“Hey, fairy boy!”

The call came from the far end of the alley. All eyes turned. The beaten Yakuza man smiled with bloody teeth when he saw the assembled reinforcements.

“More Chinks!” McGarrity exclaimed.

His five companions chuckled.

More than twice as many Japanese street toughs advanced to meet them.

“You calling me a fairy boy?” McGarrity taunted. “Look at yourselves. Chinks! All that shiny hair and shiny leather jackets and piss-colored skin. I can’t even tell the boy Chinks from the girl Chinks!”

The Japanese point man sneered. “A man in a dress has no room to talk,” he said. “Do you think to earn respect wearing a skirt in public?”

McGarrity tittered. ‘It ain’t a skirt, Chink. It’s a kilt. And you gotta be a real tough bastard to go into the streets wearing one, don’tcha think?”

This made sense to the Japanese and for the first time it occurred to them that the Mad Scots might not be bluffing. Could a bunch of high-country pretty boys really be that tough?

The Mad Scots had all the confidence in the world. They grinned at the outnumbering Japanese as if they couldn’t wait to get at them.

“You know what we do for fun back home, Chink?” McGarrity demanded. “We throw fucking boulders. I thrown boulders a lot bigger than any one of you!”

The truth was, Stewart McGarrity hadn’t been much involved in local sports. In fact, most of the Mad Scots that Stewart knew had come from the Fine Graphic Arts College in the Hills, which taught painting, sculpture and eclectic graphic arts. The College in the Hills had produced some of the most critically acclaimed—and commercially unpopular—artists of the last thirty years. Stewart was majoring in experimental geometric charcoal sketching.

But he had seen boulders tossed all his life, and right now he felt strong enough to toss two or three of them. So he snatched up the Yakuza captain and tossed him overhead. The man was too beaten to fight him off, and found himself sailing into his own men and snapping his spine noisily. He felt the paralysis but his vision kept working for several seconds—long enough to see the Mad Scots go mad on his street toughs.

Stew McGarrity arced through the air, kilt drifting up obscenely, his still shiny formal Oxford shoes landing heavily on the fallen bodies. McGarrity’s meaty fist slammed into more surprised faces, and his fearless mates were right beside him. They clobbered the Yakuza faces wherever they saw them. A knife slithered out at McGarrity, but he worked around it and got a little sliced up for his trouble, but it was just a scratch. Nothing to worry about.

One of his boys got it a little worse. Arthur Butler withdrew the switchblade that had impaled his lip and reached almost to the back of his throat. He sucked in the blood and grunted, “Dat stings, yuh piece of piss.” He propelled his assailant’s face into the alley wall.

McGarrity looked this way, then looked that way. His heavy brow wrinkled between his deep-set eyes.

“You could ’ave saved me another one of them mouses. This bunch was ’ardly worth getting outta bed for. Come on, let’s go see if we can find a real fight.”

They hit the streets. McGarrity’s band of toughs was just one of the cells of Mad Scots wandering London that night. The Mad Scots weren’t so much an organized street gang as an angry mob, but they did have the gang colors: every man jack of them was in a kilt displaying his family tartan. Those without a known pedigree simply adopted whatever tartan was most convenient. The clan didn’t matter, really. It only mattered that they were Scots and that they were mad as hell.

The kilts served another useful purpose. On the streets of London, where tempers were running high, the kilts were an invitation to pick a fight. McGarrity knew it was just a matter of time before he and his lads crossed paths with more English pig-dogs who would be itching to take them on.

“Stew!” A young ruffian in a kilt and a bloodied faced loped up the street. “Come on, there’s a big blow about to go with the London leather boys. We’re rounding up all the Mad Scots to give those faggots a what-for.”

It was music to McGarrity’s ears. He’d had enough of the Asian pansies that passed for gangs in this part of the city. “That sounds about right to me,” he grumbled.

They jogged after their friend, other young Scotsmen—and not a few women—accumulated around them, until they had an army of one hundred tartans.

“I’m hoping we’re going to get some good London ass to whup, boys, but I got a feeling this is gonna be another mouse hunt,” McGarrity complained.

Butler grunted. “Yeah, unless dey they got the fuggink American Marines backin’ up dere asses, dis many Scots lads’ll make mush of ’em, whatever many dey got.”

McGarrity laughed. “Butler, yer a friggin’ sight to see!”’

The Scottish gangbangers guffawed at Butler’s expense. He took it good-naturedly and examined his reflection in a storefront window, which showed his pierced lower lip was now swollen four times its normal size. It was purple and blotted, and the wound continued dribbling blood down his chin to soak into the front of his woolen shirt.

“I loog like a freegin’ zombie,” he announced.

The Piccadilly streets were deserted until they came upon the band of London tough guys who were lying in wait for them. The unlikely assortment included street trash, sneering punks, leather boys and British street gangs, followed up by nervous-looking British bobbies. The cops weren’t about to step in yet—they were outnumbered ten to one at this stage. Reinforcements in riot gear were arriving in panel trucks.

Stew McGarrity put on a big grin. “This could be a worthwhile romp, after all, lads.”

The two sides came together and the battle was on.