War Against the Mafia (6 page)

She smiled back at him and patted the bed beside her.

Bolan seized the patting hand and dragged her off the bed. She stumbled to her feet, spluttering. "You like to throw it," he said. "So throw it"

"Aw look, I was just-"

"Throw it!"

She threw it, repeatedly, grinding and tossing her hips in a pretty fair facsimile of a burlesque queen, and obviously tiring fast. Bolan was standing back, hands on hips, watching her labors. Presently she said, "Is this how you get your kicks or is this a grudge fight?" She had come to a panting halt, glaring at Bolan with a despairing light in her eyes. He laughed and folded her into a tight embrace, his flesh all but shrieking under the duress of the delightful head-to-toe contact

"Let's just say that you passed
your
test," he told her, grinning down at her. "Now-how do
you
want it?"

She giggled and relaxed against him. "If I have a choice, I'll take it flat on my back and breathing slow." "Okay," he said agreeably, "-at least we've got the display-window starch out of you."

"What?" She had fallen back onto the bed, tiredly drawing her legs onto the edge.

"All that posturing and posing," Bolan explained. "You put that on for all your callers?" "I never get any complaints," she assured him. He dropped his knees to the floor and encircled the lush female body with an arm, raking his lips across the torso, pausing momentarily at the breasts, then onto the throat and lingering on the pouting lips. "This is more like it," she said a moment later, sighing and running hands along his back. He doubled one of her legs and drew it forward, kissed the knee, kneading the leg and thigh with both hands.

"You, uh, like legs?" she asked, a new light beginning in the depths of her eyes. "I like yours," he told her. "But probably not in the way you're wondering. I'm just trying to discover where you tick."

"Hell, I tick all over," she said quickly. His hands had moved onto her hips, fanning along the heavy cones of firm flesh, and up into the juncture of legs and body. The raised leg jerked involuntarily and she inhaled sharply. He was grinning at her. "Well, okay, so I tick some places better than others," she admitted. "Are you going to, uh, get up here on the bed with me?"

For reply he pushed, pulled, and rolled her over and ran his hands along the back of her, hesitating here and there to probe sensitive spots. The blonde was beginning to puff again. "Say," she said, "say..."

"Yeah?"

She lunged about and flung her arms about his neck, mouth eagerly seeking his. He went onto the bed then and they lay in tight embrace, limbs intertwined, mouths joined, her hips moving rhythmically against him.

He withdrew from the urgency of her mouth and said, "Now, that's the proper movement for the bed set"

"Okay, Professor," she puffed, "-on with the lecture." Her mouth again grafted onto his, the heavy globes of breasts worrying frantically against his chest. Both hands came down off his neck and moved between them, searching, grasping.

He evaded her, saying, "I haven't seen your steam yet."

"God, God-how much steam you want a girl to have? I'm going nuts all over."

He rolled to the other side of her, carrying her over atop him, lifting her high, head beneath her chin, and buried his mouth in the luxurious flesh. She gasped and flopped, hammering at him with her hips, whining, entreating. Some moments later he pushed her onto her back and rolled off the bed to stand beside it and gaze down at her. Her knees and arms lifted together and her eyes were pleading. "Please," she moaned, "please..."

Bolan smiled approvingly, murmured, "Now you're a woman," and fell onto her.

She arched up to meet him, capturing him in a death-grip with all four limbs. "Yes, yes, yes," she panted, then her midsection exploded in a convulsive grasping, and it was not until some moments later that she was able to complete the statement. "I am a woman," she declared languidly.

"Hell, don't I know it," Bolan said tiredly.

All tests were A-OK.

An unexpected caller presented himself at the door of Mack Bolan's Liberty District apartment in the early morning hours of August 31st. Bolan grunted with surprise, swung the door open, and admitted Detective-Lieutenant Al Weatherbee. The see-all cop's eyes made a fast appraisal of the expensive lodging, then settled onto the slightly exasperated tenant

"Consider this a friendship call," the policeman said, smiling tightly. "I want-"

"Five in the morning is a bit too early for friendship," Bolan observed.

"A friend in need doesn't know the time of day," Weatherbee advised him. "I just dropped by to pass along an interesting piece of information."

Bolan was not being a gracious host. He left the lieutenant standing in the center of the living room and went back to the small kitchen. He put a pot of water on the stove, pulled two cups and a jar of instant coffee from a shelf, then turned sleepy eyes toward the front of the apartment. "Come on back here," he called.

The huge bulk of the detective moved into the narrow dining compartment. Bolan was perched on a high stool at the breakfast bar. "Coffee be ready in a minute," he announced in a thick voice. "What'd you say about some information?"

Weatherbee nodded. "Came by way of an informant." He settled tenuously onto a stool, sitting sideways and studying Bolan's face in the dim light. "A contract has been let on you, Bolan."

Bolan thought about it for a moment, then said, "I don't understand you."

"A kill contract," the policeman explained. "Somebody has set
you
up for an execution. Understand now?"

Bolan stared at him briefly, lit a cigarette, and glanced toward the pot of water. "Why does it take water so much longer to boil in the morning?" he asked soberly.

"You do know what I'm saying?"

"Yeah, I know." Bolan slid off the stool and stepped to the stove, touched the pot experimentally with fingertips, then angled a penetrating gaze toward his companion of the early morning. "You trying to shake me up, or something?" he asked softly.

Weatherbee sighed and shook his head negative. "No, this is on the level, Bolan. Look, I've had you under observation. I've known that you've been playing some sort of game with these people. Well-now
they
know it. You didn't really expect to insult their intelligence forever, did you?"

Bolan dug a spoon into the coffee jar, extracted a heaping spoonful, and slid the jar toward Weatherbee. "You're speaking of the Matthews," he declared. The water pot was just beginning to sizzle. Bolan glared at it, then lifted it off the stove and poured hot water into his cup, swizzling the coffee crystals mechanically with one hand while pouring water into his visitor's cup with the other. "They haven't seemed so intelligent," he murmured.

"Many, many dead men have had that same first impression," Weatherbee said. He stirred his coffee and took an experimental sip, "They've pegged you, Bolan," he declared, exhaling noisily. "They know who you are -and obviously they know why you are interested in them. And there's a contract out, with your name on it."

"What can I do about it?" Bolan wondered aloud.

Their eyes met. Weatherbee smiled grimly and said:

"Run. As fast and as far as you can. Southeast Asia, if you can get there."

Bolan shook his head. "I'm not running anywhere. How long has this, uh, contract been in effect?"

Weatherbee glanced at his watch. "About four hours, if my informant's information is accurate."

"And how long does it take them to get something going?"

Weatherbee shrugged the massive shoulders. "Not long. They must figure it as a fairly easy hit. The price on the contract, I'm told, is only five thousand." He sighed. "To tell the truth, Bolan, I rather half expected to find you already dead when I came up here."

"Why all the intrigue?" Bolan wanted to know. "I've been under their noses for days. Why the cat and mouse routine? They could have taken me any time."

"Why yours?"

"Huh?"

The big cop smiled. "Why have you been holding off? Your object is to kill them-and don't bother denying or confirming that, I don't expect you to. It's a matter of
modus operandi,
isn't it. The same is true of the Mafia. Contract killings are their way." He pushed the coffee away from him with a grunt. "The coffee is lousy. You didn't let the water boil. Well..." He got down off the stool, placed his hands on his hips and rocked back, stretching himself. "...I've told you. That's my duty, as I see it. It's all I can do, unless you want to request protective custody."

Bolan's reaction to the suggestion was a disparaging grunt. "Where do I stand legally? If I kill them first?" he asked.

"You'd be arrested and charged with first degree murder," Weatherbee replied calmly. He was walking toward the front door.

Bolan stalked him through the apartment. "It would be self-defense," he pointed out.

"You'd have to prove that in court," the policeman informed him. He paused at the door and turned back with a taut smile. "Look, if it means anything-you have my sympathy. But that's entirely unofficial. If you exercise that trigger finger once more in this town I'll be right on top of you, and that's the way it has to be. Now I'd say that you're between the devil and the deep deep blue. I advise, first of all, that you admit to the killings of August twenty-second and surrender yourself. A good lawyer just might be able to build a good case on temporary insanity. If you don't like that advice, then I can only say
run.
Run like hell. You can't fight these people, Bolan. You just can't fight them." He opened the door and stepped into the hallway. "Well-you want to get dressed and go with me?"

Bolan shook his head, said, "Thanks, Lieutenant," and closed the door. He went immediately to the bathroom, calmly brushed his teeth, then shaved, showered, and dressed. He examined the flip-out shoulder holster which had been provided by Turrin, inspected the snub-nosed pistol for the dozenth time, then slipped into the harness and secured it. Next he went to the kitchen and took four boxes of ammunition from a drawer, emptied the boxes, and redistributed the ammo for the.32 loosely into his pockets. Then he returned to the bedroom and rearranged the furniture, sliding the head of the bed against the east window, opened the blinds at that window to admit the strong rays of the rising sun, loosely rolled the blankets into soft lumps and pulled a sheet over them. He went through the apartment, then, carefully closing all blinds and extinguishing lamps, returning finally to the bedroom.

He positioned a chair inside the walk-in closet, went over and closed the bedroom door firmly, then returned to the closet and sat down, rolling the sliding doors to a faintly cracked closure directly in front of the chair, checked the.32 one last time, then waited with a calm and patience he had learned in another part of the world.

The second visitation to the Bolan apartment on the morning of August 31st occurred at just a few minutes before seven o'clock. This time the visitors were two in number, and they did not ring the bell. They stood in the hallway for a moment, ears pressed to the door of the Bolan apartment, while one of them fussed with a mechanical gadget of sliding blades and protruding prongs. He tried several combinations on the door, moving with quiet care, then whispered, "Think I got it." The door swung softly open. The two men paused momentarily, then stepped quietly into the apartment, closing the door carefully behind them. The interior was not entirely darkened but they stood quietly by the door for a moment allowing their eyes to adjust to the gray gloom.

"Still in bed," one hissed.

The other nodded silently and they moved slowly toward the rear of the apartment. The larger man paused near the bedroom door, squinting in the near dark to inspect a long-barrel pistol he held in his hand, A silencing device was attached to the barrel of the pistol. The other man touched the pistol, his teeth revealing themselves in a smile. "No pissin' around," he whispered. This guy's good with a gun, they say."

The man with the pistol nodded and slowly turned the knob of the bedroom door, pushed the door wide, and stepped inside, the second man right behind. They were momentarily blinded, squinting into the bright rectangle of sunlight beyond the bed, but the gunman raised his arm and squeezed off three quick shots into the huddled lump on the bed, the big pistol "phutting" dully under the muzzle silencer. Then there was a sliding sound in the corner to their right and a voice announced, "Over here, Charlie."

The two men spun as one, arms almost interlocking. Orange flame was spitting toward them and the room was vibrating with the testimony of a fast-talking pistol. A scarlet geyser erupted from the throat of the man with the gun. The other crumpled to his knees, one hand inside his jacket and frozen in a Napoleonic imitation, the jacket itself quickly turning crimson directly over the heart. Another projectile punched into the first man's face, just beneath one eye, the impact snapping his head back grotesquely. He went down atop his companion, the thoroughly silenced pistol clutched spasmodically in an uncontrollably jerking hand.

The Executioner stepped out of the closet and stood over them momentarily to confirm the results with a professional eye, then holstered his gun and quickly left the apartment He took the elevator to the basement, then hurried up the stairway of the rear service entrance to the building, crossed the alleyway, fitted a key into the service door to the opposite building, and went in. A minute or so later he entered a small apartment of that building and went to a hotplate and started some water for coffee. Then he removed the cushions from a couch and produced a high-powered rifle. The.444 Marlin sported a very businesslike telescope sight; the metal parts of the rifle were wrapped in a protective gauze. A metal ammunition box and a cleaning kit appeared from beneath the couch, and The Executioner began methodically preparing his tools for service.

"
Who
is insulting
whose
intelligence?" he muttered. To anyone who might have been interested, sniper-expert Bolan could have explained that every planned offensive also contained an avenue of retreat. "This's no retreat, though," he told the Marlin, unfolding it affectionately from its gauze covering. "It's just a tactical withdrawal to a holding position." He walked to the window and gazed onto the street below. A siren was sounding from not far away. He wondered how The Matthews would feel when they learned that the contract was still wide open. He wondered, also, how Lieutenant Weatherbee would greet the news. The Executioner, he realized, would have to step with exceeding caution from this point onward. Everybody would be after him now-the cops, the Mafia, the contract killers, probably the whole damn world. Bolan shivered slightly.

Fear is a natural emotion, he told himself.
Use it! Make it work for you!
It was a pep talk he had used many times before. But then, he had never been completely alone before.
Make it work for you!
Of course! Scare the shit out of The Matthews. Get them running scared, keep them more scared than you are, and hope that they come unglued. But how do you handle cops? You do not, Bolan realized, handle cops. You evade them. How long could he evade them? Not long, he was realist enough to understand that fact. He had, probably, a few days at the most. A few days. Well-he'd have to do what he had to do in a few days. He had to crack the Mafia wide open, get them running scared, evade their killers, evade the cops, and keep himself from coming unglued in the process-all in a matter of two or three days. Could he do it? He patted the big Marlin. Well-he'd do it or die. It was that simple. A chill chased down his spine. It was as simple as that.

Bolan discovered a truth in that stark moment of self-confrontation. He had started this thing as an act of simple vengeance. He could face that truth now. A strong sense of justice, a galvanic feeling of frustration, and a willingess to undertake independent action-these three had conspired to spell vengeance for Mack Bolan. But vengeance was no longer the issue, nor was self-defense, and this was another realization of Bolan's new truth. He no longer hated these people, these Matthews, as exemplified by Turrin, Plasky, and Seymour. He had almost learned to understand them and, in so doing, had found his hatred melting. He had come to regard them now in almost the same way he had learned to think of the enemy in Vietnam.

There was nothing personal between Bolan and the enemy, no hatred, no score to settle. Life was just an overgrown game of cowboys and Indians. There were good guys, and there were bad guys. The bad guys had to lose. It was as simple as that. The Executioner had come to realize that he was fighting a holy war, corny as it sounded! Good over evil, this was the issue. This was the cause, and Executioner Bolan knew that he would never find a better one to live for. To
live
for-not to
die
for. There was no victory in dying, this was so clear to him; the victory lay only in the death of evil, and Mack Bolan found himself irreversibly committed to that undertaking. The Mafia was evil. The Mafia must die. This was the cause.