Ivory Wave

by Don Pendleton

He’d had to move fast to avoid that first arterial spurt. Some of it got on his clothes, which meant he would have to burn them. It was just a tracksuit, nothing too expensive, but Carla would wonder what had happened to it.

  That was okay, he guessed. She had learned at an early age not to ask too many questions about his business, and even through the NDC years she had held fast to that tradition. Then, Massimo hadn’t talked about work because it was boring. Now things were changing, and he wouldn’t talk about business because a man just didn’t.

  The most important thing was the way it made him feel. Watching a man bleed out and die, thanks to something he had done, filled him with power. He was alive, he was male, he was a victor in life’s most elemental battle. He would show Carla a good time when he got home, that was for sure.

  And already he was looking forward to the next time. The next death.

  Having done it once, in an up-close, hands-on way, he wanted more.

  Maybe he was addicted. If so...bring it on.

  5

  Bolan was sitting in an empty classroom at Makin High when the door opened. The school’s principal, Mr. Robert Vahle, entered, followed by a student wearing a snug black sweater and jeans with zippers all over them. She had a blue streak in her shoulder-length blond hair, but otherwise she looked like an all-American girl. “This is Tracy Hawkins, Marshal Cooper,” Vahle said. “Tracy, the marshal has some questions for you.”

  “It’ll only take a minute,” Bolan told her. She was so nervous, her lower lip was quivering. Tears weren’t far behind. “And don’t worry, you aren’t in any trouble.”

  “O-okay,” she managed to say.

  Bolan eyed Vahle and arched one eyebrow. “If we could have a few minutes...”

  “Of course,” Vahle said. He stopped in the doorway. “I’ll be in my office if you need me.” When he left, he closed the door firmly.

  Bolan introduced himself, as he had at the school’s office, as U.S. Marshal Matthew Cooper, an alias he had used many times. He’d wanted to talk to Tracy, whom the Fultons had identified as Angela’s best friend, without her parents around. And he hadn’t wanted to wait. He figured identifying himself as a marshal would get cooperation from the school administration, and he already had the necessary badge and ID. He had sworn the school staff to secrecy, and hinted that it had something to do with Angela’s death, but didn’t reflect on Tracy at all.

  Sometimes sticking close to the truth was easiest.

  “Sit,” he told Tracy now. “I just want to talk for a minute.”

  Tracy swallowed anxiously, but she sat.

  “You knew Angela Fulton, right?” Bolan asked.

  “She was my BFF.”

  “That’s what I’ve heard.”

  “Is this about...what happened to her?” Tracy queried.

  “Yes, it is. Were you there?” He already knew the answer.

  “When she—”

  “I know she was alone when she took her own life. I mean when she took the drugs. The Ivory Wave.”

  “I didn’t...I mean—”

  “I told you,” Bolan said, “you’re not in any trouble. I just need to know.”

  “We were at a party,” Tracy said. “And somebody had some, and she...she wanted to try it.”

  “So she had never done it before?” Bolan asked.

  Tracy’s gaze rose to the ceiling, as if somebody had lowered a lifeline. “No.”

  Bolan stared at her. Her face flushed. “Okay, yeah, a few times. We both have.”

  “But this time was different?”

  “Not for me. I think maybe she used more of it than she had before,” Tracy replied.

  “A lot more?”

  “Not a whole lot, but some. She was kind of depressed over this guy. She said she wanted to forget about him. Forget about everything. So she wanted more, and she got more.”

  This was what Bolan had come for. “From whom?”

  “Some guy at the party.”

  “What guy?”

  “I don’t remember,” Tracy stated.

  Again he didn’t move his gaze from her face, didn’t blink. He knew his stare could be intense when he wanted it to be. “Yes, you do.”

  “Okay, all right,” she said. “It was Greg. Greg Reed. He always seems to have some.”

  “Just Ivory Wave, or other stuff?”

  “Whatever somebody wants, Greg can usually get,” Tracy told him.

  His name wasn’t on the list the Fultons had given Bolan. “Does he go to school here?”

  “He used to. He dropped out a few years ago.”

  “He have a job?” Bolan queried.

  “Mostly he hangs out, I guess.”

  “Where?”

  “Wherever he wants. Parties. His place.”

  “Where does he live?” Bolan probed.

  “You mean, like an address?”

  “Exactly like that.”

  “He won’t...I mean, will he know I told?”

  “I’m not asking you to testify in court, Tracy. I just want to know where he lives. He’ll never know how I found out.”

  “I don’t know the address. It’s this little house, like behind another house?”

  “Tell me how to find it, then.”

  She gave Bolan directions and sketched out a map. He told her not to tell anyone about their talk, and thanked her for her time. Then he stopped by the front office and reminded Mr. Vahle to keep quiet about his visit.

  He didn’t know how his encounter with Greg Reed might go. But if it went the way he thought it might, it would be good if nobody mentioned his trip to the school. Or if they did, that the only name they knew was that of U.S. Marshal Matthew Cooper, who didn’t exist.

  Often, honesty really was the best policy, but there were times when a little misdirection was better.

  * * *

  REED LIVED IN a carriage house behind a larger house, in one of Makin’s poorer districts. The main house was run-down, its yard brown and weedy, its paint peeling. The carriage house was even worse. Bolan was surprised the music blasting from inside wasn’t literally shaking shingles off the roof.

  He knocked, but no one answered. That didn’t surprise him. After a minute, he tried the knob. It turned freely in his hand, so he went inside. The music was louder, all bass and driving drums. A singer with a deep voice was wailing about the silence of the grave. At this point, the idea of silence sounded pretty good. Bolan considered pulling the plug on the sound system, but then decided that he might be glad it was going, to drown out any other noises.

  He found Greg Reed in a filthy bedroom, smoking a joint and looking at porn on a laptop. The kid was emaciated, all arms and legs and a willowy torso, with no meat on him anywhere. His hair was brown and straight, pasted to his scalp, and acne had had its way with his skin.

  “You Greg Reed?” Bolan asked.

  Reed jumped about six inches and slammed the computer shut. “Jeezus!” he cried. He spun around and looked at Bolan, dropping his joint to the floor and stepping on it at the same time. “Who the hell are you? What are you doing in here, anyhow?”

  Bolan showed him the marshal’s badge and ID. “United States Marshal Service,” he said. “I knocked on your door, but you didn’t answer.”

  “So you just barged in?”

  “Bad habit.” Bolan smiled. “Got a minute?”

  “You got a warrant?”

  “Let’s not go down that road,” Bolan said. “I’d rather have a nice chat here than have to take you into custody, read you your rights, wait for a lawyer and all that.”

  “Start chatting,” Reed said with a smirk. “I’ll let you know if I decide I want a lawyer.”

  Bolan crossed muscular arms over his chest. “I’ll let y
ou know if I think you get one. You gave Angela Fulton some Ivory Wave at a party, right? Couple weeks ago.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Gave, or sold?” Bolan asked.

  “I don’t remember.”

  Bolan stepped closer, his full six-foot-three frame filling the small room.

  “Greg, I already don’t like you. Don’t make it worse.”

  “Or what?”

  “You don’t want to know.” The kid was maybe twenty, twenty-one at the most. Bolan didn’t like him, but he didn’t want to have to hurt him.

  Reed took the hint. “Okay, I sold her some. I don’t charge much for it, just enough to cover my costs and a little more. And it’s not illegal.”

  “It’s not,” Bolan said. “But can you say the same about the other things you supply? You were smoking pot when I came in here.”

  Bolan used the tip of his boot to nudge a stack of papers that were thrown over a discarded bong.

  “That’s all I had. Personal use.”

  “Greg, don’t try to be smart. It doesn’t work on you.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “It means I already know you deal. What I want to know is who supplies you.”

  “Ivory Wave is legal, dude. I get it at a store,” Reed told him.

  “Flat Water Smokes?”

  “If you already have all the answers, what are you doing here?”

  “What about the rest of it? What if you needed to supply some pot? Or some meth?”

  “Who says I do?” Reed queried.

  Bolan moved faster than the kid could anticipate. One instant he was halfway across the room, the next he had hauled Reed from his chair and was holding him by the T-shirt, his head almost brushing the ceiling, feet kicking well away from the floor. “Jeezus!” Reed said again.

  “I’m starting to lose my patience with you. Are you going to answer my questions, or am I going to have to get angry?”

  “Okay! Just put me down, dude!”

  Bolan released him. The kid fell to the floor, stumbled, then regained his balance and sat on the edge of his bed. The soldier could see fear in his eyes now. “Well?”

  “Look, I’m not like some big-time dealer or anything. I just try to help out my friends, right? When they need something.”

  “So anything legal, like Ivory Wave, you buy through legal channels?”

  “That’s right,” Reed said.

  “And other things? Not so legal?”

  “I have a connection.”

  “Who?” Bolan asked.

  “Do I have to say?”

  Bolan moved fast again, snatching the laptop off the desk. A power cord snapped out of its slot. He let Reed see the laptop in his hand for a second, then he casually tossed it across the room. It hit a wall, then fell to the floor, landing on a corner. The corner caved in and the lid opened, showing a cracked monitor. Reed leaped up. “You broke my computer!”

  “Better answer my questions while you still have a home. Who’s your connection?”

  “Jeez. It’s my brother, okay? Paul. God, will he be pissed.”

  “Where does he get his supply?” Bolan asked.

  “How would I know? He’s eight years older than me. He knows people. If I need something, he can get it.”

  “Anything?”

  “I don’t know. I mean, I’ve never asked him for anything like crack or heroin.”

  “So you have standards, that’s what you’re saying?” Bolan queried.

  “That’s right.”

  “But you don’t mind supplying poison to teenage girls?”

  “I never sold Angela anything she hasn’t used a dozen times.”

  “Who sold it to her the first time, then?”

  Reed looked away. “Okay, maybe I did that.”

  “That’s what I thought. For all practical purposes, Greg, you killed that girl.”

  Reed paused and stepped back, his eyes filled with tears. They started rolling down his face. “I d-d-didn’t mean to. The shit lately has been different. I even told Angela to go easy because it’s been so powerful.”

  “Then maybe you should have thought about what you were doing,” Bolan suggested.

  “I g-guess s-so, but this stuff, you know anyone can buy. I never really thought much about it. Not until Angie.”

  “Here’s what I’m going to do, Greg,” Bolan said. “I’m going to leave now. I want you to tell your brother that we talked. Tell him what you told me.”

  Reed sniffled. Snot smeared his upper lip. “He’ll k-kill me!”

  Bolan shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. But if you haven’t told him by the time I talk to him, then I’ll come back and do it myself.”

  He started for the door, then stopped, turned and pointed at the kid. “Don’t think I won’t,” he said.

  When he left, the music was still screeching.

  6

  He didn’t really care about Greg Reed’s brother Paul. If Paul wanted to kill Greg, Bolan wouldn’t lose any sleep over it. But to run down every small-time dealer in the country would take the rest of his life, and by the time he finished, a new crop would have come along who were just as bad. He had to let some things go.

  What he wanted was to find the source of the particular batch of Ivory Wave that had killed Angela Fulton. Legal or not, somebody had to pay for that, and he had a sneaking suspicion that the lab was going to come back with something a little more than the usual formula. Now he’d determined that it had come from the Flat Water head shop. And he already had an invoice and a bill of lading, so he knew the trucking company that delivered the stuff to the shop, and who had sold it. He went back to the motel and took out those documents.

  The carrier was a company called Vandyke Freightlines. He had seen their trucks on the highways a million times, green eighteen-wheelers with a stylized Vandyke beard in their logo. According to the invoice, the Ivory Wave had come, along with assorted other items, from a distributor in Indiana called Devilweed, Inc. Bolan searched them online and learned that they distributed paraphernalia and assorted items to head shops, convenience stores, smoke shops and other businesses throughout the Midwest. All of it legal, as far as he could tell.

  The legality of it wasn’t what concerned him. He had already crossed into unlawful territory several times this day. The justice he had promised Eddie Fulton had nothing to do with laws that Congress had passed and judges upheld. It was a rawer, and maybe more pure, brand of justice.

  He was just closing the laptop when the police knocked on the door to his room.

  The soldier knew it was cops before they announced themselves, just by the sound of their footsteps outside—three men, in rubber-soled shoes or boots, all walking with determined purpose. Then one of them said, “Mr. Kenner, this is the Makin P.D. Open up, please,” confirming his hunch. Kenner was the fake name he had given when he checked in, backing it up with a phony driver’s license from Montana, and paying with a prepaid credit card that didn’t have any name on it. Bolan didn’t like leaving a paper trail, especially when he was working. And the Executioner was nearly always working.

  Bolan glanced around the room quickly. His guns were zipped in a carry bag and hidden beneath the pedestal bed. Nothing incriminating was in view. He opened the door. “Something wrong, Officers?” he asked.

  “You’re Tom Kenner?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Got some identification?”

  Bolan’s wallet was on the little bedside table. He left the door open and fetched it. While he did, the cops came in. One of them closed the door. “Right here,” Bolan said. He handed over the Kenner driver’s license.

  The cop who had done all the talking so far was older than the other two, in his early fifties. He had a creased, we
athered face under short white hair. The others were both younger, and had the look of military men, straight backed, with eyes that didn’t miss much. They were, Bolan thought, much like him.

  The older one studied the license, then gave it back. “What brings you to Makin, Mr. Kenner?”

  “Is there something wrong?” Bolan asked, ignoring the question. “Have I been accused of something?”

  The older one turned to his companions. “He look right to you?”

  The others nodded. “Mr. Kenner,” the older one said, “I’m the police chief here. My name’s Curtis Stiles, but you can call me Chief Stiles. I have a responsibility to this town and the people in it, and the businesses here. It doesn’t matter that sometimes I don’t much like the people or their businesses. And I believe that this morning you paid a visit to one of them, a place called Flat Water Smokes-n-Stuff. Kind of a hippie place, but they pay their rent and they pay their taxes. Is that correct?”

  “I pay taxes, too,” Bolan said. “And I think I know my rights. Are you arresting me for something?”

  “We’re just having a conversation here, Mr. Kenner.”

  “I don’t have a lawyer here in Makin, but I’m sure I can get one,” Bolan said.

  “Let’s don’t be hasty,” the chief said. “Here’s the thing—Flat Water has a surveillance video system and a silent alarm. One of the boys tripped the alarm. By the time my officers got there, the owners had decided they weren’t interested in pressing any charges. But the officers asked around at the other merchants, and somebody had spotted your car and made a note of the license plate. We didn’t figure you for a local, so we checked the motels. Not that many to check, really.”

  “All right, maybe I did,” Bolan said. “And maybe not. But if the shopkeepers aren’t pressing charges—”

  “We could still book you, and no doubt convict you,” Chief Stiles said. “But I’ll tell you something. You might think I’m just a small-town police chief, and you’d be right. But that doesn’t mean I ought to be underestimated. After all, I found you, didn’t I?”

  Bolan didn’t answer, but he couldn’t argue with the man’s reasoning.

  “So I thought about the business that you dropped in on, and I thought about what I saw on the videotape I made Zach show me while we waited for the paramedics to patch up his partner. You aren’t just some guy who wandered into town, Mr. Kenner, or whoever you are. You’re no traveling salesman. Then I called an old friend of mine. You might know him—his name’s Eddie Fulton?”