"Wrong question," she replied solemnly.
"What's the right one?"
"Why did I leave."
"Okay, why did you?"
She tossed her head and said, "Give me one of those damn cigarettes."
He tossed her the pack, then leaned forward to light her. When they had both settled down again, the China doll said, "I'll bet you never would have asked, would you."
He shrugged. "You had a right. It's your neck."
"I didn't leave because of my neck," she told him.
"No?"
"No." She sipped the coffee and worked at the cigarette for another long moment, then: "Your neck."
"Tell me about it."
"Mr. Wo Fan, I fear, is a dirty rat".
"Why didn't you fear that when you introduced us?"
"Because I..."
"What?"
She was busying her speech equipment with a delicate and thoughtful sipping at the coffee cup. Bolan stood up and removed the denim jacket. He put the purple lenses in a pocket of the jacket and came out of his gunleather.
The Auto Mag was locked up in the warwagon. The Beretta Belle he deposited on a table at his right hand, then he slipped off the Levi bluejeans and dropped them to the floor with the jacket. The black-suit smelled faintly of gunpowder and blood.
Bolan rubbed at a large stain on his sleeve and returned to the chair with a sigh.
Mary Ching was giving him the unblinking appraisal. In a quiet voice she told him, "I like you better that way. You look like just what you are."
"And what is that?"
"A death machine."
He curtly nodded his head and told her, "Okay, I accept that."
"And the very image of male virility."
He said, "I'll accept that too."
She smiled, almost timidly. "Right now?"
He replied, "Hell no, not right now."
She giggled.
Gruffly he said, "Watch it. I've already killed a couple million people this morning."
"You can joke about it?" she asked soberly.
Bolan sighed and told her, "It beats crying about it."
"It does bother you, then?"
"Sure it bothers me. Wouldn't it bother you?"
She blinked her eyes. "I don't know. I guess it would depend on who I was killing."
"It doesn't matter who, dead is dead," he said.
"You're a weird hombre, Mr. Executioner," the girl informed him. "I guess that's why I left, and it's why I came back."
"Because I'm weird."
"Right"
"Okay."
"You don't ask many questions, do you."
He said, "Only when they seem important."
She stared at the tip of her cigarette and seemed to be talking to it instead of Bolan. "I left because I don't deserve your protection. And I came back because you do deserve mine."
He threw it back at her. "Thanks, but I guess I don't want it."
She appeared to be a bit confused. "You'd let me just walk out of here, I mean right now?"
"Sure, if you want to."
"Then you trust me?"
"No I do not."
The China doll chewed on her lower lip and crushed out the cigarette in an ashtray in a slow and deliberate mauling of the tobacco. "You're a very frustrating conversationalist," she told him.
Why not? That perplexing little chunk of Oriental beauty had crawled right back into his guts again, and it wasn't a nice feeling.
In a voice very tired but firm he told her, "Hell, Mary, I haven't slept for about thirty hours. I haven't eaten for sixteen. I've made two very hard hits on this town and I've killed a hell of a lot of people. Now I wasn't worrying about any of this until you walked out of here a couple of hours ago. Don't ask me why, it just bugged me suddenly and I had to puke the whole mess up. And I was okay again until I walked in here and smelled your damned coffee. So what do you want of me? What the hell do you want?"
She licked her lip and said, "Wow, you can talk."
He muttered, "Go to hell."
"What are you planning on doing now?"
"Nothing."
"I mean..."
"I'm sewed in. Cops all over the place. So I'm going to get some sleep."
"Oh. Well that's perfectly clear, I guess. The cops are all around, so you're just going to crawl peacefully into bed and catch a few winks."
"That's exactly right."
"You're weird, Mack Bolan. You're really weird. Why don't you pace the floor, like the caged rats do in the movies. Why don't you get drunk or beat me up or something. Why don't you go over and smash out the window, stick your gun outside and scream out your defiance to a world that's laying all over you."
Bolan laughed, and it felt good. He did not feel like puking anything up now. He told the girl, "You're something else."
"I haven't had much sleep either," she solemnly reminded him.
"Be my guest," he said, as solemnly.
"Okay. Have you ever had a Chinese bath?"
He thought it over briefly, then replied, "I guess not."
"I'll give you one."
He said, "Okay."
"Don't you start one-wording me again."
"You've got enough for both of us," he told her.
She said, "Weird. This is really weird. I don't believe it. This is the weirdest seduction scene I've ever been in."
He chuckled and asked her, "Who's seducing whom?"
She said, "If you don't know, we're both in trouble."
The two of them left the room clinging to each other and laughing, and Bolan was feeling better than he had for some time.
It wasn't so bad to have to stand alone. That wasn't the worst part. What really got to a guy after awhile was lying alone. Genuine human companionship could be a rare thing in a war zone, especially for a one man army.
For awhile, for a very brief period of detente, the Executioner would find some exquisite human companionship. Perhaps it would have to be enough to last him a lifetime. An hour, a day, perhaps even a week. Yeah, a lifetime.
12
Counterattack, Times Two
Captain Matchison was in a steel-chewing mood and Sgt. Bill Phillips was feeling more the rookie than at any time in his career.
They were in the Brushfire mobile command post, and all of the detail leaders had been called in for an ass-chewing.
Bill Phillips was a detail leader.
It had been his job to pin the tail on the cat and he'd ended up with it pinned to himself.
It was bad enough to be black in a white man's world. It was plain miserable to be both black and incompetent. He'd had to tell the Captain the full story. What the hell. It was no time to be cute with your lord god.
Matchison was standing at the side window, glaring at the mess in the DeMarco yard. One balled fist was slowly beating out a controlled rhythm on the glass. The other hand was shoved deep into his pants pocket. The guy never showed much expression in the face. He didn't need to. Forcefields of anger radiated away from him like a satanic halo whenever he was feeling this way. A mad scowl or a cutting word would seem almost like a pat on the back at a time like this.
The other sergeants were semi-circled behind Phillips. He could not see them but he could feel them could sense their embarrassment and frustration. This was an uptight outfit. They had to be. Theirs was an uptight business. They were the elite in the town of the elite, and they had to prove it with every job that came up.
Matchison broke a two minute silence with, "I don't believe it."
Phillips said, "Captain, I..."
"Shut up, Sergeant Phillips," lord god commanded. "Don't remind me of your temporary insanity. I was just counting the stretchers out there. Do you know how many I've counted so far?"
"I guess a few," the Sergeant muttered.
"Try seventeen, and that's just for openers. The meds are still rounding them up and packing them out."
"Yessir, it was a hard hit."
"How many
of those bodies do you figure are yours?"
The Sergeant wondered if he could safely light a cigarette. He decided not, and told the Captain, "No more than one or two, I'd say. The PM will tell. I use a .38 Positive. Mack had — the suspect was using two different weapons. One was a foreign job, not too heavy, probably a nine millimeter. Had a silencer on it. The other pistol was — hell I don't know what it was. I'd never seen anything like it."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean I'd never seen a gun like that before. About a foot long, looked like stainless steel. Hooded barrel with ventilators. I watched him refill the clip. I'd never seen bullets like those, either."
"Hand loads, maybe?"
"Probably, yes, sir. The guy is a gunsmith. Maybe he even made the gun."
"I'll want that in a written report," the Captain snapped.
"Yessir."
Matchison swung away from the window to directly confront his black cop with a hard and level stare. "Bill... I'm going to try to cover you this time."
"Thanks, I appreciate it," Phillips murmured.
"But I want that GI buddy of yours!"
"Yessir, I know that."
"You stay away from him!"
"Sir?"
"I don't want anybody screaming around town that the department is cooperating in a mob wipe-out!"
"Captain, I wasn't in on the hit with him, I just got caught in the crossfire, and Bolan pulled my ass out of there for me. That's all."
Matchison's eyes rolled and he said, "Not a word of that had better get in the press. Understand?"
"Yessir," Phillips replied miserably.
"Caen or one of those guys gets ahold of a story like that and the town will laugh us across the Golden Gate."
"Bolan saved my life," the Sergeant muttered.
"That's exactly what I mean! Now just look at the thing, Bill. Look at it from an outside viewpoint. We're on a full Brushfire alert. We have the town nailed down tight and just waiting for the guy to show. The powerful Brushfire Force, your city's answer to rampant crime in the streets, the elite squad of our police department — all of these great, highly trained, highly paid police officers — against one lonely and desperate man. And so what happens. The guy casually drops in through one of our stakeouts, rubs out at least seventeen of our citizens who are not — not, remember — under indictment for any crimes — and then not only gets away clean but hangs around long enough to rescue one of our officers. Now, Bill... I want that God damned story to die right here in this vehicle."
"It's dead," Phillips assured his Captain.
One of the detail leaders behind him asked, "Is the smoking lamp lit, Captain?"
"Yeah, smoke, why not," Matchison growled. "Get comfortable, all of you. Get very comfortable for about ten minutes, because it's the last comfort you're going to find for quite awhile."
Bill Phillips believed it. He sank wearily onto a canvas chair and lit a cigarette, then sat there for considerably more than ten minutes listening to Captain Matchison's plans for Mack Bolan.
And when he left that command post with the other detail leaders, Phillips knew that it was a whale of a plan. Not even Mack Bolan, the soldier of the century, would find a loophole of comfort in the determined strategy of Jim Matchison.
And the Wang Dang kid from Able Team knew a terrible and penetrating sadness. Somewhere out there in that city the greatest human being he'd ever known was going to be run-to-ground, and impaled upon the horns of quote justice unquote, or else shot down in the streets like some sort of runaway beast.
It was a hell of a way to run a world, but that was the way the world ran... the only way.
Guys like Mack Bolan didn't stand a chance.
But... and this was the most terrible part... what chance did the world itself stand? — without guys like Mack Bolan.
Bill Phillips was a cop, sure.
He was a tough San Francisco Brushfire cop.
But there were times when he wished to God he wasn't.
He was going to kill Mack Bolan. It was his right, his obligation, and he owed it. He owed it to Mack Bolan.
Able Team would do the job better.
* * *
From one of Union Square's more expensive hotel suites, another kind of army was being ordered into the field. The suite "at the top of the joint" represented the fulfillment of a lifelong ambition for "Crazy Franco" Laurentis, the torpedo's torpedo and boss of the silk suit brigade.
"Style," Laurentis enjoyed telling anyone who would listen, "is the only thing makes life worthwhile. A man should live in style. He should eat, dress and screw in style, he even ought to die in style. I'd live in this joint if it took every cent I made just to keep me here."
It took quite a bit. The five room penthouse apartment provided one of the most breathtaking views in a city made famous by its views. From the garden terrace, from the glass-walled living room, or from just about any window in that joint, this silk-suited graduate of such institutions as Sing Sing, Leavenworth and Folsom could gaze out over the toughest town in the west and experience the giddy feeling of domain and lordship. One day he would be commanding that town, he would be holding it in his hands just as surely as he now held it in his vision — and he'd do it all from right here, from the top of the joint — because Franco Laurentis was the tops.
Let Vanity Vince and Tom the Broker have their pipedreams — it was all they would have. With or without old man DeMarco, Franco Laurentis was by God going to have San Francisco.
A death, a simple death, that's all it took. A seventy-two year old man was not going to go on living forever. Death was cheap, of course. It was the cheapest thing going. Franco could buy any life in that town for less than it cost him to live at the top of the joint for a week.
A hit on a Capo, of course, could be a messy business. There would be the eastern coalition of commissioners to explain things to, and they sometimes got their asses high in the air over a hit on a Capo. Even an old, already dying, Capo like Roman DeMarco. Even though Roman had never been too popular in life, his death would bring on a lot of tears and sympathy from the eastern mob.
Franco didn't need any of that.
It was easier to do the thing in style, to just let the old man die his own way, and meanwhile Franco could go on quietly pulling the loose ends together so it would be an easy slide from the wake to the throne.
Sometimes, of course, style took a lot of patience. The old man acted like he wanted to go on living forever. Some guys just never knew when to throw in the towel. So Franco had been very patiently unravelling the goddam towel and throwing it in for him, a thread at a time, and of course he was throwing those threads right into his own pocket.
Franco was not even in the official line of succession. Torn Vericci was first man out, by right of business power and seniority if nothing else. Vince Ciprio was running a close second. Franco wasn't even in the running. If Tom moved up to fill the old man's dead shoes, he'd move some one of his lieutenants right up to fill his vacated shoes. Ciprio would stand still. Franco would stand still. And, worst of all, he'd have to work under the thumb of Tom the Broker. Bullshit, buddy!
Vince, of course, would like to be at the head of the line. But Vince just didn't have the style to be a Capo. Tom, now — Tom the Broker was a hell of a classy guy. Deep down in his bowels, Crazy Franco was a little afraid of Tom Vericci. But not so damned afraid that he wouldn't contract the guy, if it got to that.
Franco Laurentis had the torpedo concession in this town.
Nobody, by God, had better not ever forget that.
Especially Vanity Vince and Tom the Broker.
He could take them both out with a nod of his head, if it got to that. That would make a war, of course. And the eastern coalition got nervous over open wars. It hurt the whole outfit, really. Franco understood that. That's why he continued to work with style.
It would be so much better to just have this understanding, before things ever got to open war.
&nb
sp; And Franco was about to weld that understanding into the minds of all who wanted to operate in this town.
Mack the Bastard had come to town... and hell, it had come like a gift from the angels or something.
Some very stylish use could be made of Mack the Bastard. The guy liked to go for the Capos — that was why the organization was so nervous all over the country. They wouldn't be that nervous if the guy was just knocking over a few soldiers here and there. Soldiers were cheap, and soldiers didn't have a hell of a lot to say about how nervous the organization got. It got nervous as hell, though, when the big boys were in trouble. Franco could appreciate that point of view. He was a big boy himself, now. And he was going to get bigger.
Bolan was going to knock over Don DeMarco. That was a pre-ordained fact of life, and Franco knew it. He knew it because he didn't intend to do a damned little thing to stop the guy. For God's sake, why should he?
The time for doing something would come later. Later, after the old man was totally out of the picture. And in the meantime Franco would be in undisputed charge of the town. He was already... practically... in every way that counted. He had the whole town, right in his hands. The dumb bastards Ciprio and Vericci had just handed it over to him. Take it, take it. So he took it, damn right.
Those guys were in for one hell of a shock if they thought he was just going to hand it all back after Bolan was out of the way.
After all, the guy that took out Mack the Bastard deserved some recognition, didn't he? Franco would be the hero of the outfit, all over the world. And Franco's stock would be that much higher when things finally came to the showdown with Ciprio and Vericci. No one would yell too much or too loud at the guy who finally got Bolan — not even the coalition back east. Especially if that guy was already Franco Laurentis.
Thus had been the reasoning of the stylish torpedo from the top of the joint — until approximately eight thirty on that morning of the California Hit. It was at about that time when Don DeMarco himself telephoned Franco to rake him over the coals in a most humiliating and unstylish way.
"You son of a bitch you!" the old man screamed at him. "I give you a special job and what do you do with it? You take it to bed and sleep with it? In that rich cunt-castle of yours up in the sky? Huh?"
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