“I figured you’re not from here. Who is, these days, eh?” He sighed. “It cost my client twenty bucks extra for cab fare. It’s across Lake Washington on I-90 East. Take the first offramp to Lake Sammamish. Stop at a gas station out there and ask for directions. It’s a wooded area. You get lost easy.”
“He get service out there regularly?” Bolan idly wondered.
“Out there? Naw. Once or twice before this, maybe. When this guy needs, he needs. He don’t care where he is. You’re right—that bit about lunch. I send ’em to his office—isn’t that rich. Every man’s fantasy—a broad under the desk keeping him alert during the boring daily routine.”
“Not every guy can afford to indulge that fantasy,” Bolan said.
“This one can. You said two hundred a day? Try three and four, some days.”
Everybody loved to gossip.
Bolan said, “That’s worse than smack.”
“Sure it is. On that much smack, he’d be dead long ago. Frankly, I don’t get it. I even asked the girls what the hell he does with ’em. He screws ’em, that’s what. Sure, sometimes a half a dozen different girls the same day. I still can’t believe it. I wish one of those sex surveyors would come around and survey me. Boy, what I could tell ’em.”
“You paying protection?”
“Aw no, no. We keep a low profile, nobody bothers us. No open solicitation, no street walkers. Good girls, clean and all.”
“Nobody’s tried to muscle you?”
“Aw hell, no. This is a quiet town. Where you from?”
“East,” Bolan said. “People like you don’t have a chance there. The mob runs it all.”
“Oh well, hey, we’ve got no mob here.” The guy was getting nervous. “Don’t uh, don’t get any ideas, friend. I mean, if you’re thinking of some little muscle action on your own. You wouldn’t last a day. I said I wasn’t paying protection. That doesn’t mean I don’t have it.”
“Relax,” Bolan said. “I was just wondering if this superjohn of yours was actually paying or …”
“Oh hell, he pays. Cash on the line.”
Bolan thanked the guy and got out of there.
He did not particularly like the feel of the situation. His mind nibbled briefly at the idea of set-up but discarded it as too unlikely.
As for the Lake Sammamish area, it rang out okay. It fit the situation. Good place for a quiet pad where a guy could get away from it all when the need was there. Margaret Nyeburg, if she’d come entirely clean, did not know of such a place. Which made the ring even cleaner.
Bolan had early-on discarded the thought that Nyeburg may have gone to the island. It was out of his league, totally out of reach. Nyeburg was a face, not a head—and it mattered not at all that his face officially owned the place.
Nyeburg wasn’t even made. Bolan’s chief interest in the guy lay in the “domino chain” idea. He had to spark a chain reaction somewhere. Nyeburg seemed the likeliest domino in the line.
The guy had wasted no time getting out of sight. Margaret had said that he’d received this early morning call which “lasted no more than thirty seconds.”
Tommy Rotten didn’t make that call; the kid couldn’t coherently say that much in that space of time—certainly not enough to send Nyeburg in panic to the men in New York, which is immediately what he did—that five minute long distance conference.
A few minutes later, the guy was running out of his house in panic.
So who called and tipped him in the first place, if not the sole survivor of the gunfight?
Someone with clout. Clout enough to influence a police investigation. Clout enough to put the brakes on a Bolan-alert which would put the whole town in arms.
Sure.
The mob never moved into virgin territory, not in force, without a bit of advance legal insurance. Somebody in Seattle was greasing the way. Allan Nyeburg probably knew who that somebody was—or, at least, he would know the next man in the chain, the next layer of responsibility.
Bolan needed desperately to tip that domino.
A heady brew was cooking in this “quiet” town. Something a hell of a lot more important than an island hardsite. Hardsites were never causes—they were effects. And something was brewing that would demand a hardsite—a fantastic damn hardsite—for back-up.
Cosa di tutti Cosi, sure—but how, what? What was the angle?
For the first time since L.A., Bolan felt behind the problem.
L.A. had been a disaster.
Seattle would be, too, unless Bolan could get out front—and damned quick. His combat guts were telling him so. When they talked, Bolan listened. And, at the moment, they were speaking in many tongues.
They, too, were brewing.
At least, now, he had a line on the next domino.
Wooded area, right. Narrow winding trails for roads, hills and dales, trees and water, wildlife. Paradise. A misty night without moon or stars, a chill in the air that soaked to the bone, utter pitch blackness that could give a guy vertigo if he didn’t have some reference to reality.
Not paradise, no, not this way.
Bolan’s reference was his own feet in wet grass, the chirrup of tree-dwelling insects, a sense of oneness with the night.
Sure, the night was his brother. Bolan should have been an Indian—several hundred years ago. He would lay in tall grass and wait for his brother, the bear, to hit the trail for food or water—then Bolan the Bold would rise up, bone knife in hand, to stalk and liberate the holy spirit from his brother and apologize for returning it to the universe unfulfilled. From that victory would come food for the tribe, a warm robe for the night chill, bones for tools and more weapons—a victory dance with honors from the old men.
But Bolan the Bold was not an Indian.
He did not lay in wait for his brother, the bear.
His kill would bring no profit his tribe would applaud, his victory no honors.
He was a soldier without convention; he stalked his brother, rapacious man; his final victory would be his ultimate defeat; he would be buried in dishonor.
That was reality, and that was another sort of reference.
He’d left his vehicle far to the rear, responding to a sense of, caution born long ago and reinforced on a Seattle waterfront less than twenty-four hours earlier.
Whatever the game, it was being played for high stakes.
He accepted the stakes, not even knowing what they were, and played the game by that sense of value. He would not be trapped by a layered defense this time.
And he was not.
The unmistakable burping chatter of Thompsons in fast unload came from three hundred yards in, two at once in sustained bursts that shattered the calm of the night and slew paradise for certain. The muted glow from the cabin up there was still no more than an indistinct shimmering of the mists.
Bolan had not even come close. And as he circled warily toward the road, armed with only the 9mm Beretta and stalking now only the uncertainties of the night, he saw the flare-up of automobile headlamps and heard the whine of the vehicle as it spun out of the graveled drive, the screech of tires finding purchase on asphalt pavement.
A lot of things came together in the combat mind during that infinitesimal moment of decision. Then he was crashing through the underbrush in a dead run through blackest night, on an intersecting course and damning himself for failing to awaken to truth five minutes earlier.
He got there several heartbeats ahead of the fleeing headlamps and fired on the run, dispatching a full clip without breaking stride—then diving and reloading as the shattered vehicle swerved abruptly and headed across the road to the woods on the opposite side.
It smacked head-on into a tree, veered off and swung around to break itself open upon another.
Yeah—his brother, the car.
Flames erupted immediately, spreading quickly and flashing up to engulf the wreckage in an all-consuming bonfire.
Bolan found an ejected body ten feet from the flaming pyre, entire
ly dead and minus a foot. It was a familiar body. He’d soft-touched it on an ambitious island some sixteen hours ago.
Stay soft, he muttered, and continued the evaluation.
There was no saying for sure, but what evidence lay quickly available disclosed a hit crew of but three men. A small crew, and Bolan was certain this time there were no layers. An easy hit. Sure.
He ran on up the road and into the cabin.
It was nice. Bolan himself would enjoy this cabin. One big room, with a loft. Fireplace across one wall, small kitchen and dining area, the rest living space in knotty pine and open-beam ceiling, casual furniture scattered about.
Two big logs danced flames in the fireplace. Spread in front of that cheery scene was a thick white rug of soft, nubby material. It would never be pure white again. Sprawled upon it in grotesque attitudes of violent death were the naked bodies of a man and a woman.
He was, sure, Allan Nyeburg.
She was some pretty young loser who’d found the easy way the hardest. Pretty, once. Now she and her partner in death were virtually chewed to hamburger by an untold quantity of big mean .45 caliber dumdums.
Bolan reached between them to pick up a bloody marksman’s medal. Cute. But no thanks. The Executioner would not take credit for this one, not this way.
Easy hit, yeah.
And you really blew it—didn’t you, Allan? You had it all going for you, guy. Had it all. Brains, education, looks, charm—even a halfway decent business base to build upon. Then a real cool lady and a daughter any man would claim—and you blew it, guy, you blew it! For what?
Bolan’s gaze traveled along that misused young female body punched out there, and he wondered if Nyeburg had actually seen any of them.
His brother, the satyr.
Bolan had known alkies and junkies, compulsive gamblers and suicidals of very persuasion—but this was the first guy he’d ever known to actually screw himself into the grave.
He shook his head and went away from there.
Scratch another domino. Sorry, Margaret, but that’s all the guy had ever been. A domino. With no chain—no chain at all.
And what a hell of a brew it was getting to be.
As he withdrew to his vehicle, Bolan found his thoughts centering around Margaret Nyeburg. Why Margaret? Why not the junior edition, with whom he’d shared so much of mind and flesh?
They were a contrast, those two—so alike yet so different—so together yet so apart. It was no simple matter of generation gap. There was something basically offkey.
His mind could not touch it.
Only his guts could.
He needed a talk with Margaret. Suddenly, almost desperately, that demand rose up from the animal side of his consciousness.
So okay. He would go for a parley with the cool lady.
11: SCORCHED
He left the car at the end of the lane and continued on by foot. The mists were in full sway once again at waterside—now concealing, now revealing with a ragged bottom edge that seemed to raise and lower in unpredictable patterns. The lights from the beach house were dim, barely visible through the shifting fog but still a beacon in the gloom drawing Bolan inexorably toward some deepfelt if intellectually unrecognizable crisis—like a moth, he supposed, homing on a candle’s flame, compelled by some universal force beyond comprehension to seek its own certain destruction.
Bolan recognized the feeling, and it was the reaction thereto that dictated the wary approach. With a momentary flashback of consciousness, he was in enemy country again and that was a VC hut perched at the edge of a ricefield. There was no way to know what awaited him there, but he did know that a pursuing enemy band were sniffing along his trail and already combing through the rice paddy at his rear. Certain death lay behind, an uncertain goal ahead. The hut could mean brief sanctuary or imprisonment, solace or pain, survival or extinction—but it was beckoning him and he went, all the while aware of the moth and the flame.
Of such incomprehensible directions are the destinies of men written and fulfilled, especially Mack Bolan’s sort of man.
The “rear base” beach house was a simple, oblong structure with a single bedroom, bath, a larger area without walls that served for cooking, dining, lounging—small porch to the rear, a screened porch on the beach side.
He circled the building once, picking up no vibrations of life within or without, then went to the rear and quietly let himself in. Two small table lamps were softly lighting the living area. The door to the bedroom was closed. Diffused light spilled from the open bathroom doorway to illuminate the closet-size hallway separating bedroom and bath.
There was not a sound upon the place.
The night was young but the women could have turned in early—it had been a traumatic day for both.
That uneasy feeling was still ruling Bolan’s guts, though; he moved softly along the wall of the large room and sprang the Beretta.
Margaret picked that moment to walk out of the bathroom, wearing absolutely nothing but a small towel wound about the head like a turban.
She spotted Bolan immediately and froze in mid-stride with a soft exclamation of dismay.
It was a body to make young men wish they were older and old men yearn for youth one more time around, glowing with the soft allure of mellowed maturity yet youthful in carriage and striking of form.
And Bolan knew, in a flash of understanding, at least part of the answer to the contrasts between mother and daughter. Dianna was a beautiful kid, sure—all fresh and sparkling and natural—but Bolan now understood that natural could also mean raw.
That lady standing there, for all her naked embarassment, was a rare piece of feminine art—refined and polished and fully turned beyond the raw by the craftswoman who lived within.
He told her, “Dammit, Margaret, I won’t apologize for staring.”
She replied, with a cool blend of embarassment and humor, “I should hope not,” and disappeared back the way she’d come.
The experience had been hardly more than a flash—but it was a flash that illumined. Bolan would not soon forget.
She reappeared a moment later with a large bath-towel securely in place, cinched in at the armpits and covering to about midthigh. With a nervous laugh, she confessed, “You scared another strand of gray into my hair.”
Bolan apologized for that and waved away her own quiet explanation for nudity. He had not, after all, prepared the ladies for an overnight visit away from home.
He guided her to a chair at the small dining table and sat her down, then pulled a chair for himself close alongside and told her, “I have grim news.”
“I’m prepared for it,” she replied, looking away, though.
“Allan is dead.”
“I see.”
“Not by my hand. Someone beat me to him. He was silenced.”
Her eyes were moist when they returned to his gaze. “That’s twice,” she said simply, in a voice that nearly broke.
Bolan understood. Twice a widow. “Sorry,” he muttered.
“Where is her?”
“Cabin, Sammamish area. Know it?”
She shook her head. “Allan had several secret places. How did he die?”
“Quickly.”
She understood. “Do you have a cigarette, Mr. Bolan?”
He lit one and placed it at her hand. “I’ve never lived in your moccasins, Margaret,” he said quietly. “If you want to scream and yell, go ahead.”
She gave him a half-bright smile and took a pull at the cigarette. “The time for screaming and yelling is long past,” she replied. “I had already decided to divorce Allan. Awaiting only the right moment. There’s been so much … intrigue of late. Still … well, there is an ache. I can’t help that.”
“Wouldn’t want you to,” he commented gruffly. “Can we talk a little?”
“Of course.”
“How long had Allan been in this thing? To your knowledge?”
“I suppose … about a year. It began with a busines
s trip to New York. Suddenly Allan became involved in real estate, proxy purchases. Then the Expo thing, shipping, meetings with strange men. Life didn’t become frantic until just the past month or so, though. Since then it has been mysterious telephone conversations at all hours, armed men lurking about—that pathetic child, Tommy Rentino, forever in Allan’s shadow. Was he a bodyguard?”
Bolan shrugged. “If so, nobody figured your husband for being in much jeopardy. Tommy is not a very hard man.”
The lady sighed. “Poor Tommy. He was madly in love with Dianna. A hopeless, hurting sort of crush, you know.” The eyes flashed at Bolan. “Dianna favors more mature men.”
“How is Dianna? She had a rough—”
“I sent her away.”
Bolan stared at the lady, thoughts chugging and images frozen. “You did what?”
“She has conflicting loyalties, Mr. Bolan. I convinced her that she should make a decision and act accordingly.”
He growled, “I need more than that, Margaret.”
“She has a lover,” the lady reported, sighing.
So what and why not? As the young lady herself had observed, it wasn’t 1940—and, even then, many young ladies had lovers. But why had Boland blithely overlooked even the question?
He told the young lady’s mother, “I still don’t understand. Unless you’re saying that I’m a threat to her morals. There’s a much larger threat waiting out there for your daughter, and it—”
She halted his speech with a pained expression and a hand at his shoulder. “No, not that. I said ‘conflict’ and that is exactly what I meant. Dy paced around here for an hour, crying and wringing her hands. She’s not nearly so sophisticated as she appears, Mr. Bolan. Dy is a—well, a very direct sort. She handles emotions at the heart level. She—”
“What’s the conflict?”
“You. And John Franciscus.”
“Who’s he?”
The lady shook her head. “Dy met him through some association with Allan. I hadn’t heard of them, though, until just today. Until Dy began pacing and crying, in fact. But I gather that he is in the enemy camp.”
It was a nutty family, Bolan was deciding. The lady had sent the Executioner after her husband, presumably because the man was a detestable criminal type whom she could simply not condone—married to it or not. The lady’s daughter, who supposedly hated her stepfather, made love to his executioner and pleaded for his life though marked for death, herself, by the guy’s associates. Now the mother was telling the executioner that she’d “sent” her daughter into the death camp because of “conflicting” loyalties—an affair of the heart with one of the enemy.
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