* * *
The breeze blew through Erica Mayes's hair as she walked arm-in-arm down Duval Street with Jean-Louis Faraday. The man was huge — Erica felt like she could fit her entire body in one of his forearms — but he seemed very sweet. She feared for what Delgado was going to do to him.
The yarn she'd spun for him was one of four different backstories she had created for "Star" to tell the customers who wanted to know more about her. The only constant was that she was working her way through college, though it was four different colleges, none of them the community college she was actually attending.
Oh, and in all the stories she had a happy family life. That was a pleasant lie.
She paid very close attention to the route they were taking, and by the time they arrived at the small house that Faraday rented, Erica realized that the walk should have taken half the time — but he'd taken them on a very circuitous route.
No wonder Delgado had needed her.
Once they got inside the small, three-room house — just a kitchenette, living room and bedroom, plus a small bathroom — Erica said, "Can I use your bathroom?"
"Sure," Faraday said as he walked toward the fridge. "You want a beer?"
"Okay." Erica actually hated beer, but she was trying to keep him relaxed.
If only she could do the same for herself.
One of the reasons she'd gone with the version of "Star" who was taking a year off from school was because that had the simplest backstory. Her heart was pounding — which she hoped Faraday chalked up to excitement — and she was afraid that he would see through her deception and strangle her right there.
Hell, he could probably smash her head in with one hand.
Once she closed the door to the bathroom, she turned on the faucet, and let the water run while she pulled the disposable cell phone that Delgado had given her out of her small purse. The contact list on the phone only had one number on it, and Erica called it. She'd left her Treo at home deliberately. She didn't want any evidence that she'd been here, and that included phone calls from her phone at either Cutter's or here.
"Yeah?" an unfamiliar voice on the other end said.
Stammering, she whispered out the address of the place.
"Got it. Give it ten minutes, then say you have to use the can. Stay there until someone knocks on the bathroom door, all right?"
Erica nodded, then remembered it was a phone call. "All right," she repeated.
After splashing some cold water on her face in the vain hope that it would make her feel better — although it did relax her a little bit — she left the small bathroom and went back out into the living room.
The furnishings could kindly be called Spartan. He had one big couch, and that was it as far as where to sit in the living room.
The man himself was sitting on the couch in question, holding two bottles of an amber beer.
"Have a seat, darlin'," he said, patting the couch cushion next to him with one meaty hand.
The next ten minutes took forever to go by. They made small talk about nothing in particular, and then Faraday leaned in.
"You're very beautiful, Star," he said as his large hand cupped her chin. It felt dangerously close to an attempt to strangle her, but she told herself that that was just because of how big that hand was in relation to her head.
But still, she felt as if she was about to be smothered alive.
Instead, he kissed her.
To her surprise, the kiss was quite pleasant. His tongue probed gently into her mouth. It was the first time she'd kissed a man so deeply since she and Xavier had started dating — aside from Xavier himself, of course. In the VIP lounge, she didn't allow kissing, either.
As the kiss deepened, Faraday's hand moved under her shirt. She tensed, but allowed it. She had to force herself to think about the money.
With the cash Delgado was giving her, she could take the next semester off from dancing, devote all her time to studying, maybe add a few more credits, graduate sooner.
So she let Faraday's hand move up to her bra.
She wrapped her arms around his back — they barely made it — so she could discreetly check her watch in mid-kiss.
Nine minutes.
Close enough for jazz.
She broke off the kiss and gave Faraday an apologetic look.
"Sorry, but that rum and Coke went right through me." She added a shy smile. "I'd rather not be distracted by a full bladder."
Faraday grinned. "Me either."
Getting up from the sofa, Erica went into the bathroom, and waited.
7
The Oldsmobile belonging to Jean-Louis Faraday was approaching its owner's house just behind a white Lexus that had parked in front of it.
As soon as she saw the three men get out of the Lexus, Lola Maxwell swerved the Olds to the left and drove to park on a cross street.
"I assume those three are Lee's muscle?" Bolan asked.
Maxwell nodded. "We're just in time." She killed the ignition, then checked her Beretta to make sure she was locked and loaded. It had a full clip, which she checked, slammed back into place and cocked.
Bolan did likewise with both his SIG-Sauer and his Desert Eagle. After climbing out of the Olds, he placed the SIG in a shoulder holster, with the Desert Eagle staying in his right hand. Three on three were probably even odds, but he didn't know how useful Faraday or Maxwell would be in a firefight, and he assumed that Lee wouldn't send people who weren't good in a firefight to instigate one.
All things considered, he preferred his odds with a higher-caliber weapon.
The small house had a front and back door. Two of the men went to the back, with the third approaching the front door.
Bolan pointed at Maxwell, then at the back door.
To his relief, she agreed readily, nodding and moving toward the back with her Beretta at the ready.
The Executioner proceeded to the front door.
The hired guns had already gone inside by the time Bolan reached the door. The front door had been unlocked, but on the way over Maxwell had said that Faraday apparently only locked the door when he went to sleep, and then only if he remembered.
Bolan hoped he lived to regret that decision this night.
Inside, Faraday was finishing his beer, waiting for Star to hurry up in the commode when the door opened.
He kept a Beretta in the end table of the couch, which was on the other side of it from where he was sitting. It was the same model Maxwell had — she'd gotten them both together, actually, since Faraday couldn't get a permit as an ex-con. Maxwell never mentioned that Faraday was armed in her reports to whatever government agency had hired her. Hell, half the time, she didn't mention Faraday at all, except vaguely as a CI.
As soon as Faraday started to slide across the couch, a voice said, "Don't be movin', fat man."
Looking up, he saw two of Lee's muscle guys, Brand and Hawkins, the latter being the one who spoke. Brand was aiming a Smith & Wesson .38 special — an actual, honest-to-God six-shooter, like he was in the goddamn Old West or something — while Hawkins backed up his insult with a Glock 17.
Hoping Star would have the brains to stay in the bathroom, Faraday held up his hands. "It's cool."
Brand spoke, then. "You're a hard man to find, Faraday."
"Yeah, that's what all the girls say," he said with a grin. "You want somethin', or we just gonna stand here flappin' gums all night?"
"Mr. Lee says..."
Whatever message Brand was about to impart from Lee was cut off by the .357 bullet that tore through his abdomen, pulverizing his liver, stomach and half his intestinal tract. Blood exploded out of his belly along with the bullet, which continued through to embed itself deep within Faraday's couch.
Even as Brand fell forward, dead, and Hawkins turned to see what had just happened, Faraday dived for the end table.
The time it would take Bolan to recover from the Desert Eagle's considerable recoil and reaim at Hawkins was enough time for Hawkins
to squeeze off a shot of his own. Knowing this, Bolan didn't waste time with the reaiming part, but used the recoil from the Desert Eagle to fall to the floor.
Years of martial arts training made the fall harmless to the Executioner, though he temporarily lost his grip on the Desert Eagle.
Three bullets from Hawkins's .38 whizzed over Bolan's head and splintered the wood of the house's door frame with a crack.
However, Hawkins quickly recovered, now aiming downward at the Executioner.
Before he could pull the trigger, though, Faraday had used Bolan's distraction to yank open the end table drawer, pick up the Beretta, take the safety off and fire a shot at Hawkins.
The bullet tore through the fleshy part of Hawkins's left shoulder.
Unfortunately for him, Hawkins was right handed, and the S&W could easily be fired one-handed, as the goon quickly demonstrated, firing his last three bullets at Faraday.
The first two hit the fat man in center mass, but the third went wild, hitting the bathroom door behind Faraday — going right through the cheap wood.
Three screams filled the small house: one was muffled, coming from the bathroom. The second was Faraday, who fell to the couch as the two slugs buried themselves in his massive chest. Looking down at the pool of blood forming on his shirt, he saw that Hawkins had missed the heart, but he'd still bleed out pretty fast if he didn't get medical help quickly.
The third was Hawkins himself. As the man had taken his last shot, Bolan fired his Desert Eagle at Hawkins's calf.
The .357 round completely destroyed Hawkins's right calf, shattering bone and arteries into a thousand pieces. Only a small strip of flesh kept his foot attached to the rest of his body, and he fell to the floor in agony.
LeRoy Hawkins had thought he knew what pain was from his life of violence.
He was wrong.
He just kept screaming.
Clutching his bleeding belly, Faraday was more concerned about the screaming that was coming from his bathroom. Stumbling clumsily to the door, he saw that the .38 round had cut all the way through the cheap door.
He fumbled with the doorknob, barely managing to open it before collapsing to the floor, his vision swimming.
Bolan got to his feet, saw that Hawkins was still screaming in agony. He'd bleed out before too long without medical attention.
The Executioner jogged to the bathroom, where a woman's screams had grown louder with Faraday opening the door.
Inside was a petite woman, screaming her lungs out. There were no obvious wounds on her, but the shaving mirror attached to the large mirror on the wall had been shattered — probably by Hawkins's shot that went wide when Bolan shot the man.
Glad that she hadn't been hurt by the stray shot, Bolan grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her gently. "It's all right, Star, it's over."
Bolan had, of course, recognized her immediately from Hot Keys. Getting herself under control, she then also recognized him. "Oh my God. You're..."
"Not who you think I am. Are you okay?"
She quickly nodded.
"Good."
Bolan turned toward the back door, wondering what Maxwell was doing, but not sure he should leave this young woman alone with the injured Faraday for company.
Her presence here likely wasn't a coincidence, but he could deal with that when the situation was under control.
"Wait here," he said with a sharp look at Star, then ran to the back door.
8
Slowly, Maxwell moved alongside the back of Faraday's house, Beretta at the ready, wondering how the hell Lee had gotten onto them.
She had gone to great lengths to conceal her home, and Faraday had gone to greater ones. She knew that he'd been followed going home from Cutter's or any number of other places, but he'd always lost the tail.
So how'd they find him this night?
When she got to the edge of the house, she peered around the corner to see David Favre approaching the back door, which was actually two doors: a thin metal screen door and a thick wooden main door.
Maxwell smiled. This, she was going to enjoy.
Because he shared the same last name as a famous NFL quarterback, everyone had pronounced Favre's last name "Fahrv," like the athlete did. Except David pronounced it the way the name was spelled and also pronounced in the original French: "Fav-ruh."
But the guys all loved football so much that they insisted on "Fahrv." And sometimes they just did it to annoy David who could, it had to be said, be a total dick.
From Maxwell's perspective, though, the worst was during the birthday party for Danny Delgado that Lee had thrown last year on his yacht. Maxwell had arrived before McAvoy, and Favre thought it'd be cute to grab her ass.
After she slapped his hand, she went to the small bathroom on the boat, only to have Favre force his way into the tiny space with her and try to feel her up.
She kneed him in the balls.
Just as he put his fingers on the handle to the screen door, Maxwell fired a shot right at his hand.
She could've gone for a kill shot, but she wanted him to know who killed him.
The sound of the shot was drowned out by gunfire inside, which meant that Cooper was obviously doing his thing. Her Beretta's round splintered the first two knuckles on Favre's left hand.
Favre cried out in pain, and whirled.
"You! Bitch!"
"That would be me, yes," Maxwell said with a sweet smile. "Don't make me have to knee you in the balls again."
Favre raised his Glock 17 with his right hand, his left hand unconsciously moving to steady his grip, as the Glock was not a one-handed weapon.
That motion caused considerable pain, as half of that hand's insides were exposed, and bones shifted into unfamiliar positions that they were never meant to fit into.
Favre's finger squeezed on the trigger anyhow, and a 9 mm round whizzed through the air toward Maxwell. Still flush against the house, she had nowhere to move, so she pressed herself against the wall as best she could.
The bullet tore through her left biceps, skidding across the flesh of her arm like a flat rock across water.
Gritting her teeth against the pain, Maxwell said, "Dammit, Favre, that'll leave a scar!"
She'd pronounced it "Fahrv," just to piss him off.
However, Favre was in too much pain to respond. He was now on his knees, his Glock having fallen to the grassy ground, and he clutched his left wrist with his right hand, as if that would ward off the agony.
Maxwell sauntered up to Favre, trying to ignore the bleeding mess of her left arm that sent white-hot daggers of pain all the way from her wrist to her shoulder.
"You want out of here in one piece, Favre," Maxwell said, again mispronouncing his name, "you tell me how you found out where Jean-Louis and I live."
Sweat was pouring down Favre's face as he stared up at Maxwell in somewhat disbelief.
"Screw off, bitch," he said through clenched teeth.
Maxwell shrugged. "Fine."
She raised her Beretta and fired twice at his groin.
The first bullet cut just below Favre's stomach and torpedoed downward, ripping into his colon.
The second went a bit lower, pulverizing one testicle and continuing to the thigh, nicking the femoral artery.
He'd be dead in a few seconds.
"You were never any good with that anyhow."
"Fuck... you..." The words were a struggle.
"Been wanting to shoot that thing off since Danny's birthday, Favre."
"It's... it's 'Fav-ruh,' you... you... stupid bitch..."
Those were Favre's last words.
Stepping over his corpse, Lola opened the screen door at the same time that someone else opened the inner door.
Throwing the door open the rest of the way, and ignoring the pain slicing through her left arm, Maxwell raised her Beretta.
On the other side, the Executioner did likewise with his Desert Eagle.
When they each recognized each other, the
weapons both lowered.
"Call an ambulance," Bolan said without preamble. "Faraday's been shot."
Tears welled in Maxwell's eyes as she reached into her pocket for her cell — or, rather, tried to with her left hand, but she couldn't raise it high enough to put her hand in her pocket. Holstering the Beretta with her right hand, she then reached across her body to pull out the phone.
"Will he be okay?" she asked.
"Depends on how fast the ambulance you're about to call gets here. He took two shots to the chest."
One-handed, Lola turned on the phone, activated it and then went to the keypad to punch in 9-1-1.
When she was done, Maxwell looked around. Faraday was on the floor at the threshold of the bathroom. If he'd been shot in the chest, it was best not to move him, so she stayed clear until the EMTs showed up.
She just added Faraday to Lee's bill.
A young woman was sitting on the couch, tears having mingled with mascara to make her look like a raccoon. She looked like Faraday's type. The poor kid was probably his booty call for the evening and got stuck with this.
She also saw two corpses: LeRoy Hawkins and Jack Brand. "Damn. The big guns."
"What do you mean?" the Executioner asked.
As she talked, Maxwell went to the kitchenette to clean and bandage her wound. Faraday kept a first-aid kit under the sink. "These two, the guy outside that I iced, and Jiminez — not to mention Pooky, the guy Johnny took down before he died — they're Lee's best guys."
Bolan tilted his head. "So he'll be recruiting?"
She shrugged and winced as she cleaned the wound. "Probably."
The young woman on the couch started crying.
"It's okay, Star," Bolan said. "It's over now."
Maxwell frowned. No way the Executioner would be on a first-name basis with Faraday's squeeze already. "You know her?"
"She's one of the dancers at Hot Keys. She came to Delgado's table right before I left."
Having finished one-handedly wrapping a bandage around her left biceps, Lola quickly moved into the living room, raising her Beretta at Star.
The dancer's eyes grew wide. "What're you doing?" she squeaked.
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