New York City 1957
The rumors were flying around not only the city but also the country about 'The Horseman' and his startling appearance in the fight against crime and corruption. Naturally, opinions varied widely. Many thought he was a masked lunatic who fancies himself some sort of Samurai with his swords and bows. There were others shared the opinion that he was a lunatic but were secretly glad that the bad guys seemed to be taking out the bad guys. The rank and file police officers of the city were surprisingly short on negative opinions of the vigilante, though his apparent respect and deference to the NYPD no doubt contributed to that state as much as the fact that he had saved the life of the daughter of a highly respected veteran Captain (who was even accepted by some as a true cop herself).
While the attack on Lisa's home definitely got the ball rolling on 'The Horseman's' notoriety, it was the events of the following days that created the media circus.
Apparently, the men who tried to kill Lisa in her home were just some young Italian thugs trying to earn reputations and respect. Unfortunately, one of the men was the nephew to the Underboss of one of the Five Families, Salvatore Rissa.
Rissa was a rail thin man with a weasel-like face and a thin mustache. He had pale, pasty skin with pock marks from childhood still visible on his face and severe halitosis. The dead, glassy black eyes of the man were the only indication that he was a cold and effective killer. In fact, it was killing that allowed him to rise through the ranks of Underboss AKA 'Street Boss', despite the fact that he was always an outsider.
Unlike most, he had no family connections to La Cosa Nostra, by blood or marriage. In fact, he wasn't even full blooded Italian. It was his deepest secret that his weak father had been cuckholded by an idiotic Russian delivery man. The night he became a 'Made Man' he strangled his mother with the cord from her bedroom window blinds after painfully extracting the Russian deliveryman's name and last known residence. That had made it easy to locate the man since he hasn't moved in all those years. It was a simple matter to caulk the door seams and locks to prevent was people before quietly walking around the house and squirting the lighter fluid from their backyard barbecue over the outer walls (concentrating especially on the areas around windows and doors). He the. proceeded to light a cigarette and dispose of the used match by tossing it into the puddle of fluid at the back door. He even stayed to hear his biological father and the man's real family burn alive. He was a sick fuck.
Despite everyone thinking him an only son of a weak, cowardly and poor disgrace for an Sicilian man and a fat, hairy woman who had been a prostitute in Palermo before coming to America immediately following World War One, he learned to instill fear in almost all of his peers.
While Rissa's temperament and moderately high intelligence alone was enough to make him dangerous, both were amplified significantly when he was forced to choose between prison or the battlefields of Europe as a 17 year old boy who had been caught robbing a movie theater with s switchblade. It had not been his first offense. He wisely (or foolishly, depending on whom you ask) chose to join the Army and and was enlisted as an Infantryman and shipped off to France.
In the Army, he learned how to kill with more than knives, clubs and pistols as well as learning about more advanced combat tactics and familiarizing himself with military grade weaponry. He also somehow looted and successfully smuggled back a significant amount of gems, which aided in his establishing himself in the New York Underworld. His services as a contract killer brought him into contact with a few of the right (wrong) people and through a not so subtle threat, acquired a large formerly Irish Pub with apartments upstairs and a salon next door.
After acquiring the salon and opening up the walls in between, he turned it into his Gentleman's Club and hangout. It quickly became a popular hangout for Italian mobsters and allowed him to establish many useful connections. Soon, the 'work' he had been doing led to him joining a crew. Serving a few years in that crew was enough to bring him close to the Family and within another two years he was inducted into the family as a 'Made Man'.
Shortly after he was 'Made' he noticed that he actually had a few women willing to marry him. He was evidentially drawn to a young girl whose family was peripherally related to the Family. Her short and rail thin build mixed with her mousy facial features and button nose drew Sal in. As soon as he figured out that she was a natural submissive, both inside and outside of the bedroom, he quickly married her with little fanfare. It was her sister's son who, wanting to earn the respect of his uncle, tried to use his relationship with Salvatore Rissa to gather some other hoods to attack the bitch-cop that had been causing them problems (including arresting him after embarrassingly boxing him onto his ass).
Obviously, this caused a whole shitstorm. The NYPD believed that the Mob was making some sort of declaration of war by trying to murder a female cop in her bed at home by trying to rape her and blow her house up (intentionally or not, the story was altered and embellished without mention that it was 'The Horseman' who actually orchestrated all of the pyrotechnics.
Meanwhile, the Mob was pissed about losing those young men who had dangerous family and friends. Rissa was absolutely determined to painfully end the existence of the bitch-cop and the crazy medieval motherfucker in the hood.
Without knowing who the vigilante was, he had no choice but to go for the she-pig first. Plus, he had no doubt that once he had her at his mercy that he would be a me to extract a name from her, if she knew his identity. It seemed likely that she would.
He decided to have some of his men on the force arrange themselves on her protective detail one evening a few nights after the attack on her home. He was confident his men would bring her in. But, if they fucked up, they were expendable. Uniformed patrolmen on the payroll were useful but hardly a vital asset like the NYPD Captain or the multiple corrupt detectives that worked for him.
That night, as Lisa drove home with her protective detail following, her escort flashed their lights signaling for her to pull over. Though she was curious, she wasn't overly worried. At least, she wasn't until the patrolmen told her that they thought they had seen smoke or steam coming from her wheel wells. They told her they were concerned that someone had tampered with her brakes, or worse, and asked if she could hold the flashlight while they simultaneously checked both sides of the undercarriage. Though she thought it an odd way to proceed, she was tired and wanted to get home. So she acquiesced and exited the driver's side just in time to see one of the patrolmen swing his flashlight right at her neck.
Barely given a chance to react, her arm just barely made it up in time to block the swing. That didn't prevent the heavy aluminum tube from impacting her arm with enough force to temporarily prevent its use. She quickly ducked another blow and back pedaled, trying to create space and time.
Unfortunately, the other officer had come around the front bumper of her car, cutting off her escape. She felt terror rise in her chest as she realized that instead of brandishing weapons at her, they simple held a pair of handcuffs, a length of rope, duct tape and a black bag.
Knowing that her only real chance was the gun still sitting on her car seat, well out of reach, she simply charged the closest man. Catching him by surprise was a bonus but a trained woman fighting against two larger and similarly trained men with one arm rarely ended well for the fairer sex.
As the men each grabbed and pinned one of her arms behind her back, she was saved from a painful death for the second time in less than a week by arrows flicking through the darkness from an unseen source. Oddly, it seemed like both arrows hit their target at the same exact instant.
With a forceful lurch, the corrupt patrolmen bellowed in seemingly synchronized screams of pain as she turned to see a black arrow protruding from the thighs of each man. Shockingly, the arrows had hit both men with enough force to fully penetrate and pin each one's leg to the steel body of her Chevy.
Lisa looked about wildly as she regained her composure before diving back into her car and reemerging with the Walther PPK that she carried under the seat. As she spun around and urgently brought her gun up, she was confronted with the figure that previously saved her at her house.
"The Horseman'.
Still, she didn't lower her weapon. His striking eyes penetrated her very soul, or so it seemed, leaving her feeling vulnerable despite the fact that she held a gun on him.
She could tell he was smiling underneath his half-mask as he removed his hood. Facing her with the lower half of his face covered by what she could only describe as a 'Samurai mask' with it's glossy black and dull grey colors depicted the lower face of a fanged demon wearing a sardonic smile. The effect of the mask alone was quite unsettling but it was the rest of his outfit that made an impression.
