Bolan picked up his bag from the floor and crossed the large living room to the stairs. On the second landing Joan Meredith caught up with him.
"I'll show you where you and Roy sleep," she said, leading him down the hall to a guest room with a canopied bed and heavy oak furniture. He dropped the bag and sat heavily on the bed.
"There's still a large piece missing in this puzzle," she said, giving Bolan an inquiring look.
"You bet there is." He pulled off his shoes. "I agree with Ottoni. I don't think Villanis hired those hit men."
"Then who did?" she asked.
"The only people I can rule out are the ones already dead."
"You mean Ottoni.?.."
"I don't know what I mean. Maybe Ottoni, maybe Old Sam himself... who knows? There's a game plan here that we haven't figured out yet, and that scares me."
Just then Ottoni poked his head in the door. He was carrying his drink. "Don't sleep too long," he cautioned. "Maybe they won't wait until dark this time."
He walked off, both Bolan and Meredith staring at the empty door space for a long time.
In the light from a sliver of moon, the Lincoln Memorial glowed like a huge light bulb against the black night sky, its white-marbled walls resembling bright sabers. Its clean healthy appearance was due in large measure to the fact that heavy industry was not allowed within the confines of Washington, D.C., so air pollution couldn't dirty this remembrance of America's possibilities and realizations.
The grounds around the memorial were left dark, unlit, so that the statue and its housing would totally rivet attention. To Ken Chasen, though, the lack of illumination was a godsend, a large area of darkness into which he could slip like a shadow, unseen. He moved through the trees of veteran's park, past the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, then down the stairs to the long, narrow reflecting pool, an adjunct to the distant Washington Monument.
He'd been on the run all day long, mingling with the tourists at all the Washington sights, seeing things he hadn't seen in ten years of working for Justice. It was so long since he'd slept he couldn't remember what it was like. His seemingly inexhaustible supply of coke was dwindling, a fact that had begun to worry him. Thank God, he'd see Yvette soon, he thought. He was living only for that moment and the salvation it would bring him.
It was cold, too cold for the T-shirt he wore. He hoped that didn't make him too conspicuous. If only he'd had enough sense to grab his wallet before he ran. At least he'd have had the money to hide himself better.
He looked at his watch, its luminous dial glowing in pulsing green. It was nearly midnight, the time he'd set with Yvette for the meet. He walked right up to the reflecting pool, kneeling to splash some of its water onto his face and hair, trying to make himself look more presentable.
He stood again, trying to ignore the few people still wandering around. He felt that all eyes were watching him, dissecting him, judging. Everyone was a stranger, all of them hostile. Earlier a man had walked up to him and asked for the time, but he was smarter than that. He had run, knowing the man was just testing him, checking to see who he was and why he was there.
A long flight of stairs led up from the pool to the memorial. He climbed the steps, crossing the asphalt drive filled with cars that was the memorial's parking section. More stairs led up to the monument itself. It was late, the regular park police who guarded the memorial by day had gone off duty, leaving only the occasional cruising patrol. Washington was a city of the people. The memorial was open twenty-four hours a day.
As he walked between the 36 Doric columns supporting the massive structure that housed the seated statue of Lincoln, he was filled with a rush of memories.
He had met Yvette at Phillips one night when he had stayed around for one more drink when the others had gone. She'd struck up a conversation with him, finally admitting that she'd only just come to town and didn't know her way around. One drink led to another, then to Chasen's gallant offer to escort the lovely lady to see the city's high points. The fact that he had been feeling less than masculine of late undoubtedly had had some influence on his intentions, but even so he had never expected what would develop. It was late, the last stop on their whirlwind tour, and the memorial was all but empty. With that wicked smile he would come to know so well, Yvette had hiked up her skirt and come on to him on the spot. Deliriously they'd made love, standing up, leaning against the statue of Lincoln.
It had been the most dizzying and exciting experience of his life. From that moment on he'd been totally devoted to her. She touched a deeply hidden, perverted chord in him that simply charged excitement back into his ordinary life. That she had asked him to meet her here tonight only reaffirmed to him the bond that held them together.
But the lights were bright in there, too bright for his dilated pupils. He wished there were some dark corner he could take shelter in. He felt so vulnerable out there in the light. He was beginning to notice the chill and needed more coke to whisk away that particular sensation.
He stood and looked up at the statue, Lincoln staring down sternly at him. He walked around to the back of the massive sculpture, to the place where their first tryst had been consummated.
Like the strength of his memory, there she stood, looking more beautiful than he'd thought possible. She was smiling, but her expression changed quickly when she saw the state he was in.
"What happened to you?" she asked, eyes narrowing.
"Oh baby." He tried to take her in his arms. "I've missed you so much."
She returned his embrace perfunctorily, then pushed him to arm's length, her face set in worry. "Tell me... what?"
He told her everything, about Marie leaving him, about the ringing phone he'd been afraid to answer, about Kaminsky and the police breaking into his house. He even told her about the doghouse. When he was finished, she stood looking at the ground, obviously deep in thought.
"You've got to help me," he begged. "I need a place to hide. I need more coke. Maybe your friends could get me out of the country."
"You're too hot," she answered coldly. "Are you sure you don't know what steps they're taking to protect the witnesses?"
"It's all fallen apart," he whined. "I've got nothing more. They know about us, Yvette. They know."
"But they haven't got you yet."
He wondered why her face looked so odd, so cruel. "That's why you've got to help me. You can hide me out, somehow take me..."
"They'd never allow it," she snapped. "It's all over, Ken. Once you've lost your usefulness...well, there's just nothing else to be done." She shrugged. "I guess that's how life works."
"But what about you?" he said, looking for humanity in her deep blue eyes. "What about us? Can't you help me? What am I supposed to do?"
Finally she smiled, reaching into her purse. "You're not supposed to do anything now, Ken... except die."
He found himself staring down the barrel of a small gun, a .32, held by a cold-looking woman he hardly recognized. "Yvette!"
He threw himself at her, the gun going off with a loud pop as he reached her. He thought he heard a scream from somewhere else in the memorial, and noticed some poor devil's blood all over the marble floor. It was only after a half minute and several abortive attempts at rising that he realized that the blood was his own.
He rolled over. The roof seemed to swirl two hundred feet above him in a mist. Then, somehow getting to his knees, he looked around for Yvette, but she was already gone. Bracing himself against the side of the statue, he staggered to his feet, leaving a streak of red on the pale white.
Blood flowed from his side, but the wound didn't seem serious, even to him. Walking was incredibly painful, though, as he tried to make his way across the floor of the monument. Several people stopped to stare in horror at him, but when a woman walked toward him, he waved her off with an angry growl.
He got outside, then tripped on the steps, rolling in a screaming ball of pain all the way to street level. He half walked, half fell across the street, hi
s mind awash in confusion, knowing only that he needed transportation, that his weak, rubbery legs couldn't carry him very far.
As he crossed the street a Toyota Tercel with two women in the front seat pulled up and parked near him. When the driver opened her door, he threw himself on her. Screaming, she flailed at him and he responded with guttural growls and loud moans. But he managed to grab her keys away from her before letting both women run off into the night.
Cursing at his blurred vision, he fell into the front seat of the Tercel and jammed the key in the ignition, started the engine. His T-shirt was soaked in blood, but one of the women had left a heavy coat draped over the back of the seat. He ripped off his shirt and wadded it against his wound. Then he put on the too small coat and drove off.
Chasen still couldn't think. The only thing he knew was that he needed help, needed to be hidden. He remembered the addresses he had stolen from the top-secret file and had given to Yvette. One of them was in Oklahoma City. He edged the car south and gave it the gas.
* * *
Burnett lit a cigarette and smiled at the drunken man across the table from him. They called him Big Larry. He blew a gust of stagnant breath in Burnett's face as he returned the smile through blackened and missing teeth.
"How about we kick in an extra ten bucks to make it interestin'?" Big Larry said loudly, above the pounding music, as he stuck his own cigarette in his mouth. Coolie stepped up to light it for him.
Burnett nodded and pulled another ten-dollar bill out of his pocket, slapping it down on the table, which was wet with beer. When he turned to Coolie and winked. Coolie backed away into the crowd that surrounded Burnett and Larry in the smoky, dimly lit Denver bar called the Squirrel Cage.
They had driven straight through from Seattle in the Cadillac, taking turns sleeping and driving, and had pulled in here just as soon as they saw the line of motorcycles parked in front. Nobody ever put anything over on Terry Burnett. When he went for those bastards tonight, he'd have some backup — just as soon as he finished with Big Larry.
He'd known lots of bikers and they weren't any different than soldiers. They all wore uniforms and followed orders and waged war. All you had to do was show them who was in charge.
When he looked across the table at Big Larry he knew he could take him, if for no other reason than the man was too drunk to really apply himself. Big Larry's people were called the Rogues, and they were traveling in full uniform tonight — cutoff denim jackets with their name emblazoned across the back under a pair of wings and a swastika.
"Well, I'm ready any time you are, partner," Larry said, trying to look menacing.
Burnett leaned up close, meeting the man's shifty eyes with the diamond hardness that sat in his own sockets. He puffed up his cigarette until the tip was a glowing, violent orange. "The sooner the better," he said, putting his right elbow up on the table and opening his hand.
The small crowd cheered as Big Larry brought a beefy arm up on the table and clasped Burnett's hand. One of Larry's people, a tall, thin blonde with a Vandyke and stringy hair, moved up to the table. He pulled a small length of clothesline out of his belt and tied it around the men's clasped hands.
The blond guy looked at both of them. "When I count three," he said with deadly solemnity, "get to it. The only rule is you can't use the cigarette on the face. Got it?"
"Yeah," Larry said.
"Go for it," Burnett said.
"Okay, one... two..."
Burnett puffed the cigarette hard, stoking the tip up hot.
"...three!"
With a loud groan, the men pulled against one another, each trying to topple the other's arm. They pulled the cigarettes out of their mouths and each touched the glowing end to his adversary's arm.
The big man was stronger, levering Burnett's arm to a forty-five-degree angle almost immediately, but the moment the cigarette touched him, things changed.
Burnett had invented this variation on traditional arm wrestling while in Vietnam and hadn't been beaten at it yet. He watched Big Larry's eyes open wide in pain, some of the strength draining from his grip almost immediately.
For his part, Burnett subjugated the pain, first accepting it, then learning to live with it, then finally making love to it as the smell of roasting flesh reached his nostrils. Slashing knives of pain ran up and down his forearm even as his muscles strained against the big man, but he controlled the pain, working with it.
As the crowd yelled in approval and disbelief, Burnett played the eye game with the man, boring in, letting him know that nothing, nothing would make him give in.
And he pushed back, straining against a man who was giving more and more of his will over to fighting the pain.
Burnett pulled the cigarette away and puffed on it again, and his opponent regained some of his strength. But when he touched it to Larry's arm again, the fight fled from the man's eyes.
Burnett saw his opening and took it. Pressing down hard with the cigarette, he levered all his strength into his right arm, all the while maintaining the crushing eye contact. Everyone in the room knew what was going on. The two were competing in a very elemental way to see who was the better man, like rams butting heads or lions killing all the cubs of rival males in the pride.
Big Larry tried to come back, giving one last push, but Burnett could already see the retreat in his face and held firm. Larry finally gave up with a shout, his free hand coming up to rub the burns on his arms.
"You're one crazy son of a bitch, you know that?" he said as applause and cheers rang around the table.
Burnett ignored the pain in his arm, instead untying the clothesline. "Just determined," he said, picking up the wager and waving it around his head, yelling, "Beer for everybody!"
Big Larry grinned, his greasy hair hanging down in his face. He had been converted, easily sliding into the role of second best. He reached over to grab a beer right out of someone's hand, and sloshed it everywhere as he raised it in the air. "Here's to the meanest dude I ever met!"
Burnett stood, acknowledging the cheers, then pointed to Big Larry. "And here's the meanest son of a bitch I ever met!"
Everyone cheered wildly. Big Larry got up and took Burnett in a bear hug, both men yelling gutturally.
When the pitchers arrived they sat back down, and Coolie joined them at the table. Juke was trying to play pool nearby.
"You guys based out of Denver?" Burnett asked Big Larry as they drank.
The big man shook his head. "Colorado Springs is where the house is. We come up here a lot on weekends, though."
"You all... mind how you make your money?" Burnett asked.
Larry raised a bushy eyebrow. "What's that mean?" he asked.
Burnett sat up straight and drained his glass. "It means I got somethin' to do that I could use some help on, if you and your people don't mind how you make your money.'
"How much money?" Big Larry leaned closer and lowered his voice.
"Twenty-five g's," Burnett replied casually.
"That's thousand? Twenty-five thousand?" The man gestured theatrically. "Who do I have to kill?"
"His name isn't important," Burnett answered, giving the biker a hard stare.
"You're serious?"
Burnett nodded. "About the bread and about the dude."
The man sat quietly for a minute, then took another sip of beer. "Where's the money?"
Burnett unbuttoned his fatigue shirt pocket and pulled out the wad of hundred-dollar bills, dropping it on the table in front of Larry. "Put it in your pocket," he invited. "See how it feels."
Larry looked around quickly, then scooped up the wad and stuffed it in his pocket. "What's the gig?"
"There's a man, a lawyer, who lives out at Big Bear Lake," Coolie explained. "He needs to die, and we need some help killing him."
"If you and your people are man enough," Burnett added, "the money's yours."
Big Larry sucked air through his teeth. "You know, a big shipment of coke just showed up in town. Wi
th twenty-five grand, I could buy and turn twice that."
"A good couple hours' work," Coolie replied.
"What the hell." Larry got to his feet. "C'mon outside. Got somethin' I want to show you."
Burnett stood, laying a hand on Coolie's shoulder. "Stay put," he said, then leaned down to whisper in his ear. "If I ain't back in five minutes come out and look for me."
Coolie nodded and poured himself another beer, while Burnett walked through the crowded bar and out into the cold Denver night with Big Larry.
"Quite a deal running into you tonight," Larry remarked as he led Burnett down the long line of chopped Harleys. "We made a big score on smokin' dope a few days ago and just spent it all." He came to a stop at the back of a nondescript van painted primer gray.
"What'd you spend it all on?" Burnett asked.
"This," the biker answered, unlocking the van and pulling open the back door.
The floor of the van was filled with hardware — submachine guns and cases of ammo, high-powered rifles, handguns and a crate full of grenades, including a launcher.
The two men looked at each other in understanding. "Let's party," Big Larry said.
10
Ottoni couldn't stop pacing. He walked continuously, peering nervously out one window, then moving on to the next. The only time he stopped his perpetual rounds was when he went to the bar to mix himself another drink, which happened with regularity every fifteen minutes.
"Ottoni's tearing himself up," Joan Meredith said as she and Bolan watched him pass the couch where they were sitting to go to the bar again. "He's going to go to pieces if something doesn't happen soon."
"I should have got the booze out of here," Bolan replied. "The way he's soaking it up, he couldn't help us out if his life depended upon it."
"And it probably does," Meredith added.
Ottoni finished mixing a tall drink at the bar and walked back to sit opposite them on the circular couch. "I can't stand this waiting," he complained. "We've got to do something. Isn't there some way to find out..."
The Killing Urge Page 12