She nodded.
He liked the way the stray black curl crept down on her forehead.
They had about twenty seconds to talk before reaching the lobby.
"What do you, do, Johnny?"
"I'm a paralegal. I work for a lawyer."
"How exciting. I always wanted to be a lawyer, but somehow I got sidetracked into business."
"It's a nice track, especially if you can work with the folks up there on the sixteenth floor. That Philmore Industries looks like a plush operation."
She nodded. "I guess it is. Are you in a hurry? Right now, I mean."
"No. Why?"
"I guess I'd like to talk to you some more. I have an instinct about people and I usually follow my instincts. It hasn't failed me yet. I… I like you."
"Have you had lunch? We could have a bite somewhere," Johnny suggested, trying to sound calm.
"Wonderful!"
"There's a little place not far from here that sells pita bread sandwiches. Do you like them?"
Angela nodded as they crossed the lobby and headed for the entrance.
The automatic doors opened and she caught his arm and held on as they walked out into the sunlight.
Three blocks later, they entered the sandwich shop with a counter and wooden booths where hundreds of secretaries, clerks and junior executives had lunch every day.
"I've never been here," she said, looking around.
They ordered two pocket-bread sandwiches, found a vacant booth and talked as they ate. Quickly they covered the international situation, the political race for mayor of San Diego and at last the recreational choices for winter or summer.
Neither of them had said a word about themselves. It was as if that was not a permitted topic. They both finished the pocket sandwiches and had little paper cups of sherbet for dessert, then walked back toward the plaza.
He reached for her hand and put it through his arm, then smiled at her.
"I don't even know your last name."
She smiled. "Names, names. It's not that important."
"Suit yourself," he said, then added, "I'm parked in the garage downstairs."
"Me too. You can walk me to my car. That place gets kind of creepy sometimes."
"Glad to."
When they came to her car on the first level, he found with surprise that it was a brand-new Mercedes 380SL. But the expensive car was low on one side. He checked around the vehicle, then came back to Angela.
"Your left rear tire is flat."
"Damn!"
"No problem. I can change it in five minutes."
"Would you, please?"
He took her keys and opened the trunk. "And this really is your car?"
"Daddy owns it, I guess. But I drive it all the time. No, I think the pink slip is in my name this time."
He saw the Triple A sticker on her side window. She could have called the auto club to have the flat fixed. He did not mention the auto-club service. Neither did she.
Johnny went to work, changed the tire and stowed the flat one in the trunk.
"Have somebody fix that soon, you don't want to drive without a spare."
"Yes, sir." She smiled. Those sneaky brown eyes of hers could capture a person quickly.
"Since you won't tell me your last name, how about a phone number?"
"I don't give my number to people I haven't known for at least three hours."
"Good idea. I'm Johnny Gray."
"Let's compromise. I owe you a lunch already and I owe you a dinner for fixing my flat tire. You give me your number and I can call you. Deal?"
"Fair enough." He gave her his work phone.
"I've got to hurry away," Angela said. "I'm an hour late now."
Johnny nodded. "I'm glad I was lost on the sixteenth floor."
"You're nice, Johnny. I really do have to run." She kissed his cheek, then stepped into the Mercedes. Johnny closed the door.
He watched her drive down the lane of cars. When she was out of sight, he jogged to the next level where he found his VW. He looked at the blue Volkswagen with its faded, chipped paint job, creases in two fenders and one headlight sitting askew.
"Don't worry about it," he said, patting the car. "Being pretty isn't everything." He was halfway up to the pay booth when he thought about his problem again. So far he knew the Mafia car was owned by a big firm called Philmore Industries, who rented the whole sixteenth floor of the Security Plaza building. Not bad for a start.
Johnny realized he still had many more questions than answers. His next move was to go and see Karl Darlow and try for some information. Surely Karl would tell him what was going on.
Johnny paid the parking fee and headed for University Hospital.
As he drove, he had a lurking feeling that he was getting close to the solution of the puzzle. But a nagging dread crawled along his spine as he wondered if, when he finally found out what he was after, he'd be able to handle it.
10
Mack Bolan hovered like a lethal black shadow beside the rear door of the City Market. He was on a side street in Maywood, not far from the Chicago city limits. The market had been closed for two hours, but lights still showed in the back. For some it was «banking» time, midnight.
Bolan had waited in the darkness as a couple of runners came to the door, knocked twice, then paused and knocked two more times. The door opened and the errand boys passed inside. In only two or three minutes they were back in the alley and fading into the gloom.
No one had come for twenty minutes. Bolan moved silently and quickly to the doorway, his dark skintight suit making him a black on black apparition. He raised his big fist and used the same signal as the two messengers. The door opened a crack and when it did Bolan's size-eleven shoe smashed into it waist high, ripping the screws from the small night-chain latch, flinging the door inward.
The man who had been inches away from the door was hurled six feet across the room as he caught the full force of the wooden panel on the side of his head.
Four others sitting at a long green-topped table looked up in bewilderment. Nothing like this had ever happened before. The specter in black before them held a deadly looking pistol in one hand and his diamond-steel blue eyes glared at them.
"Enzio, you're a dead man," Bolan said. The silenced Beretta 93-R sneezed twice, and the boss of the Mafia numbers bank died where he sat at the table. The first round caught him just under his left eye and completed The Executioner's job before the second slug arrived. Enzio had been facing the door and pitched over backward as the 9mm parabellum rounds drilled into him.
"Lord have mercy!" one of the men wailed. Mercy is for the innocent, Bolan thought. He indicated that they should stand and the three men at the table stood in unison.
"Quaso, get the money from the safe," the Executioner growled. Quaso hesitated only for a moment, but it was all the time Bolan needed. Once more the 93-R coughed and Quaso fell backward on top of his former boss.
"The money. From the safe and off the table." Bolan motioned with his gun and the smaller of the two hoods knocked over his chair in his haste to get to the safe. The other thug began to gather up the stacks of currency on the green felt.
The fifth man, who had answered the door, groaned and started to sit up on the floor.
"Don't move!" Bolan barked at him. "Catch." With his left hand Bolan pulled something from his slit pocket and tossed it to the goon on the floor. Still slightly dazed from his recent confrontation with the door, the man missed the metal disk and it fell on his chest.
"Holy mother!" the terrified soldier whispered.
"Louder, Pete!" Bolan thundered.
"The marksman's medal. It's the Executioner!" Pete croaked.
At the sound of the name the man at the safe made a desperate move. His hand clawed for iron from an ankle holster. He whirled, firing as he turned.
Bolan triggered the Beretta three times, the force of the rounds pushing the gunner back into the open vault. As the small man died he got off
a final shot, but it missed Bolan and ricocheted off a metal filing cabinet, drilling a passage through Pete's chest where he lay on the floor. He sighed and died.
The third slug had not yet found its mark when Bolan was tracking the 93-R to the fourth man at the table.
"Rudolfo," Bolan snapped. "Drop your piece. Then fill the sack, now!"
A minute later the money was all in a dark green trash bag and sitting on the table in front of Bolan. Four Mafia numbers soldiers lay dead on the floor.
"Tell Louis Lavengelli that I'm in town, to keep looking over his shoulder. Tell him Bolan the Bastard is back, and his head is on the line."
Rudolfo was pale, his hands spread flat on the table, his arms trembling.
Bolan took another marksman's medal from his pocket, opened Enzio's mouth and forced the small disk between the dead man's teeth. Maybe the Chitown Family would get the connection.
Bolan grabbed the sack of money and retreated slowly. He watched Rudolfo's lips moving and Mack Bolan guessed the man was saying a prayer in celebration of the miracle that his life had been spared.
About an hour later, Bolan made another stop off Central Street, a few blocks from the Oak Park city limits sign. It was a little after 1:00 A. M. and the night people were out in force. The Executioner parked his car, then eased into an alley next to the Roxy Theater, and let his eyes get used to the darkness.
Socks was in her office as usual about fifty feet down the inky black alley. It was a half-basement stairway with a big landing at the bottom. At 1:00 a.m. every morning she took a folding chair down the steps, set up her kerosene heater, took out her flashlight and began her operation.
She was making a sale when Bolan arrived. He waited for the addicts to buy and leave. Then he walked down the steps.
Socks looked up quickly. The tread was too steady, too sure. Cops? She put one hand under her big coat and waited.
"Hear you got some good shit," Bolan said.
"Always good. You buying?"
"Not what you're selling, old woman. You want to sell out?"
"I don't sell out, I just deal."
"Not this time. It's your scrawny neck in exchange for the name of your supplier."
She laughed. Bolan watched her closely. He saw the slightest movement under the bulky coat near her waist. The Beretta leveled at his hip spat once in the darkness. The silenced round found its mark, Socks's right arm.
She screeched in pain and a.32 automatic clattered to the cement floor by her feet.
"Bastard!" she snarled at him.
"That was your only chance, Socks. You play the game my way, or you find out if there is life after death."
"Not this time, sucker," Socks shouted.
"You get half a point for guts, Socks. Now open the loose brick behind you and take out your stash."
She shook her head.
"How many teenagers have you killed with your PCP and horse? Five people died in a crash on the freeway yesterday. They were hit by a car with three seventeen-year-old girls in it, sky-high on drugs. They all died, too. The boyfriend of one of them told me you sold to all the kids. One choice, your supplier or your grave."
"Ha! You wouldn't shoot an old woman like me. I'm a senior citizen. And I'll never tell you my connection."
The Executioner shot her twice in the face. He felt no remorse even though she was a woman. She was part of the hydra that suffocated hope and honesty. Women held a special place in Bolan's heart. But on occasion, he had to execute a few, like now.
He walked up the steps, found a phone and called the police. He reported shots fired in an alley, then hung up and faded into the darkness after he gave the location.
There are nearly eight million people in the Chicago metropolitan area. Bolan had heard there were now four Mafia Families that had split up the territory and worked closely with La Commissione. They had a stable operation, with each Family holding to its territory. There had been no real intermob violence there for a year.
He had also been told that one drug czar held the franchise for the Chicago district. Since the most money was in drugs, the Families did not want the boss of each outfit trying to outbid and outfight the others for the best flow through the California pipeline. They were bringing modern business methods into the Mob operation.
Bolan had been in Chicago for a week working his sources, twisting arms, keeping a low profile and quietly gathering all the information he needed.
Now he had gone public and it was a hard hit all the way.
He was in his attack mode and when Bolan was through, the Chicago Mafia wouldn't know what hit them.
Bolan drove deeper into the heart of downtown Chicago, parked on a dimly lit street and jogged down an alley. He stopped in front of an abandoned building that showed lights on the fifth floor. Bolan entered through a cellar window and cautiously worked his way across the junk-filled basement toward the stairs.
"That you, Frisco?" a deep voice ahead of him in the dark asked.
"Uh-huh," Bolan grunted.
"Hell it is!" the deep voice boomed. A big flashlight came on and swept the basement. The Beretta whispered three times, with the single shots aimed in a pattern around the light source.
The silenced rounds had barely left the muzzle when the flashlight clattered to the floor and a strangled scream dropped to zero decibels as the basement guard died.
Bolan stepped over him and found the flashlight. It still worked. He pushed it in his belt and walked up to the first floor. There was no guard there. He continued to the second floor, treading softly on the sides of the wooden steps closest to the wall so they would not squeak.
On the third level Bolan heard voices and he slipped through a stairway door into the hall. It was dark, except for a flickering light three doors down.
The hallway there was shadowed by the wavering flame, but Bolan could see spray-painted graffiti on the walls. He looked closer. It was all in Oriental characters, Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, he was not sure which. Sliding silently along the corridor with the Beretta out, the Executioner came to the doorway and looked in.
Dozens of candles lit the big room. Most of the floor area was covered with thin pallets and sleeping bags and prone human forms occupied more than fifty of the sleeping mats.
This was an opium den. Near the door of the room sat a wooden business desk. Behind it was a small Oriental man smoking a long-stemmed pipe. He chanted a few words in a singsong voice, then took a deep drag on the pipe and held the smoke in his lungs as long as he could. When he exhaled, a serene expression crossed his features and he relaxed in the chair.
Bolan shook his head. The scene had changed suddenly and he was sighting through a sniper scope at a headman in a Vietnamese village, his finger squeezing the trigger. Someone coughed in the back of the room, and the Executioner snapped back to the present.
He moved into the room with a firm, hard step and the languid eyes of the Oriental behind the desk turned toward him. There was no surprise or alarm there, only curiosity.
A Vietnamese in the first row of pallets rose up and fired a small-caliber handgun. Bolan felt the slug graze his side.
The Executioner spun and sent one silent round into the gunman, slamming him back lifelessly to the mat.
A second man in the front row sat up, swinging two short sticks held together by a six-inch chain. Bolan turned, acquired target and fired twice before the Oriental could hurl the weapon.
Two slugs caught the addict in the chest and the sticks flew out of his hand. With eyes glazed and spittle drooling from his lips, the mortally wounded man laughed and charged the Executioner, this time brandishing a long knife. The silenced 93-R spit flame again and three slugs cored the attacker's skull. The man finally went down, the blade skittering across the floor.
No more defenders rose from the front row.
The small Oriental behind the desk puffed unconcernedly on the pipe, nodding to himself. His drug-slowed eyes turned toward Bolan again.
; "Can you pay?" the man asked.
"Only with lead," Bolan replied.
The Vietnamese blinked slowly, then shook his head.
"Lead has no value," he said.
"Sure it has. Right now it's worth its weight in gold." The Executioner put one silenced 9mm parabellum hornet into the man's mouth as he started to reply. It punched him off his stool to the floor.
No one else in the room even looked up.
The Executioner hurried to the desk. In the drawers he found stacks of folded packets of cocaine. He took all the bundles and built a small fire on the desk top, feeding the packages into it one at a time until they were all eaten by the fire and only a sticky residue left on the desk.
In another drawer he found a quarter of a pound of white powder. He licked a finger and tasted it. Heroin.
The Executioner walked to the nearest window, ripped open the plastic bag and spilled the white powder into the night. It caught in the breeze, created a small cloud for a moment, then scattered in the Chicago wind.
Then Bolan dropped a marksman's medal on the desk, ran down the steps and exited through the basement window.
He had one more call planned before daylight. Bolan found the street he wanted a little after 3:00 A. M. He had no difficulty picking the locked outer door of the apartment house. The lobby was empty and Bolan took the elevator to the fourteenth floor.
He found apartment 1414 and tried the door. Locked. Again Bolan made short work of the twin locks and entered the residence.
The apartment's living room was luxuriously furnished with subdued lighting. A big-screen projection TV stood in one corner. He brushed past it and treaded down a short corridor toward two closed doors. The first one was a den. The second yielded the bedroom.
A bedside lamp glowed on low power, showing a king-size water bed with two figures on it. A nude black woman lay on her back, the sheets thrown off. Next to her, sleeping on his side, lay a black man.
Amos «Mo» Tabler was in his thirties. A Vietnam veteran and former Chicago Bears halfback, he was one of the drug suppliers to dealers in this area. Silently Bolan lifted a.45 auto from the nightstand. Showing under the edge of the pillow was a longer-barreled weapon, a Woodsman.22 with silencer attached. Bolan worked the weapon from the hiding place and checked the nightstand drawer. No more guns.
Resurrection Day Page 8