“She’s not worth dumb, huh?”
The guys at the car were still frozen, listening with hope and maybe prayers to the debate. Both were headhunters, but not aces. All they had at stake here was life or death.
With the Domino, it was obviously much more than that.
He said, “She’s not worth a damn thing to anybody—except to me. I won’t leave her, Bolan. I’ll say good-bye to my head first.”
Bolan tried one. “She can’t help you, Domino. All she knows about her father is the terror that Ship has been holding at her head all these years.”
“You know about that, huh? Where the hell do you get it all, guy?”
“I live right,” Bolan told him. “You don’t.”
Another layer fell inside the guy. The eyes receded another level inward as he replied to that. “You’re wrong. You don’t really have it. The only help we need from the woman is her presence in court.”
“What court?”
“You know what court. And you know what’s happening between the families right now. Don’t you.”
Bolan said, “Maybe. What’s the point?”
“The point is that it’s time for Ship to pay his tab. It’s been called in. If I can’t deliver Ship, then at least his woman is silent proof of the tab. We need it.”
“Who is we?”
“You know who is we.”
Yeah. Bolan knew who was we. “We” were a group of crafty old men who played curious games of deceit and intrigue while proclaiming the sanctity of brotherhood. Now, apparently, the “we” were becoming separated into factions of “us” and “them”—and some human pawn work was at hand.
Bolan said to the Black Ace, “You guys have been holding a tab for fifteen years? Come on, now.”
Another layer fell. Inside, the guy was getting desperate. Neither Bolan nor Big Thunder had wavered so much as a hairline. Time was running out, and the guy knew how very little pull was left in the balance between life and death for one black ace.
He was giving it away.
“It wasn’t all that important then. It’s been in the bank, waiting for importance. Now it’s important.”
Bolan said, “Thanks, Domino. You’ve been everything I needed.”
Then he blew the guy’s dumb head off. He died without knowing that he did so.
The other two did not move or even look. They had already succumbed to combat shock.
Bolan told them, “Okay, boys, live and learn. Our deal still holds. Good-bye.”
“Is it straight?” one of them croaked.
“It’s straight. Beat it.”
They beat it, moving swiftly to their vehicle without a backward glance.
When they pulled away, Bolan knelt beside the remains of a black ace to examine what was left there.
Yeah. This one was a real veteran—quite a bit older, really, than the new face revealed. And there was telltale evidence, at close look, of many changes of face for this guy. Probably the guy could not even recall the name he’d been born to, nor the face he’d grown to maturity with. Not even fingerprints would testify for the guy now; too many pains had been taken to insure that they would never testify against him.
Bolan sighed and placed a marksman’s medal on the still chest. The mark of the beast, yeah. It was mark enough to identify this unknown soldier.
“You earned it, guy” Bolan muttered, and went to check the lady.
Her eyes were open and she was giving him a soft stare as he helped her to a comfortable position.
“Did you hear all of that?” he quietly asked her.
“Yes, I heard it,” she said calmly.
“Did you understand it?”
“Yes, I understood it.”
“Are you okay?”
“Sure, I’m okay. I believed you the first time. Everything is okay now.”
Bolan was not so sure about that. Domino and one of his aces had gone down in the battle at Paces Ferry. But there were four aces in every deck. Two were still somewhere in play. And there was, of course, the unresolved question concerning the Rat of Atlanta.
But Bolan had no intention of burdening the lady with doubts—not now. He put the ’Vette in motion and curled an arm about her, holding her tight.
And the look in those eyes reminded him why he was smarter than a black ace.
He lived better.
17: Tracking On
The cowboy and the superskate kid had already broken camp and were preparing to make tracks when Bolan returned with his prize.
The two women fell quietly into each other’s arms. Bolan sent them to the cabin and pulled the cowboy into a quiet conference.
The guy could have hardly missed the family resemblance; he knew who the lady was. “Is that what you went after?” he asked Bolan.
“That’s what,” Bolan said grimly.
“Must have been a hell of a squeak.”
“It was that. Listen—things are coming to a head. I’m going to have to move fast if I intend to stay in front. I’ll need your help.”
“You’ve got it,” the cowboy said quickly.
“Awhile ago you were telling me about an old buddy with an unforgettable name. Billy Bob.”
“Yeah?”
“The guy was part of an ambush on a Federal strike force a few minutes ago. He’s dirty as hell. How does that ring?”
There was no mistaking the genuineness of that surprise and mystification. “Dammit! First Shorty and now—hell, I—it’s just—if you say so, okay. How do you know it was him?”
“Too much for coincidence,” Bolan said. “He’s a Cobb deputy and someone called his name. We were staring at each other across hot muzzles. He decided he didn’t want it. He showed me his back and took a walk.”
“Okay, yeah, okay. I can buy it. He’s always admired you. He’s got a scrapbook full of you.”
“You told me he was moonlighting a job.”
“Right. Some security outfit. I believe it’s composed mostly of off-duty cops.”
“Something’s ringing here,” Bolan said. “Tell me what it is.”
“They guard warehouses and truck depots,” the cowboy replied quietly. “How does that ring?”
“Full harmony,” Bolan said. “Okay. But something is still out of quiver. I can see Domino drafting Ship’s own hard forces but not his dirty cops. That doesn’t fit.”
“Who is Domino?”
“A headhunter from Yankeeland. Billy Bob was standing shoulder to shoulder with those people. I think I need to know what the connection is. Can you find out?”
“Watch me find out,” the cowboy replied. “I’ll use the phone and be right back.”
“You may have to search, guy. The last I saw of your buddy, his forces were in full retreat. I’d guess they’re lying low and licking wounds right now.”
“I know where to search,” Reynolds growled.
He went into the cabin.
Bolan checked his weapons and replenished spent clips, then he leaned against the fire-red Corvette and went to work on his diminishing energies.
When the cowboy returned minutes later, Bolan was sound asleep on his feet.
Reynolds said, “What the hell?”
Bolan’s eyes cracked open. He said, “I’m here. What’d you get?”
“I got your man. He sends apologies and best wishes. Says he’s turning it all in. Just trying to decide now who to turn it to.”
“Give him the same guy I gave you,” Bolan suggested.
“The Federal guy?”
Bolan nodded. “What’s the intel?”
“Billy Bob never met the boss. He’s sure it was not Sciaparelli, though. He says it was ‘some people’ in New York. They weren’t doing security work. They were checkers.”
“What were they checking?”
“Shipments.”
Okay. It figured. More and more, Sciaparelli was being revealed as nothing but a front cover for the main interests up country. And they did not trust their cover. They ha
d eyes on the guy, guarding against thievery and/or unauthorized extension of territory and power. The guy had a bit in his mouth, yeah.
“He knew about Shorty,” Reynolds said.
“What’d he know?”
“He says he let it slip to Shorty a couple of months ago—Billy Bob’s job with New York, I mean. He said he knew Shorty was climbing a trouble tree when he started the thing with Jennifer. Shorty had been a pretty good cop, you know. He was digging into some old stuff. Billy Bob didn’t know what it was, but Shorty was going to cut him into the action as soon as he got it all sorted out. Shorty called him yesterday morning when we got back from the Detroit haul. He told Billy Bob to get it ready to start shaking the money tree—real money. Then last night at about nine o’clock, Billy Bob was out checking the loading at Bluebird. He said a guy named Lago and a couple other regular Bluebird security people pulled Shorty out of his cab and dragged him away. Billy Bob didn’t make a move on that. He had too much of his own to cover. And he was not at all surprised when I told him that Shorty was dead.”
Bolan said, “Okay. It’s all coming together, now. Nine last night ties pretty close to the time when Domino was dispatched from New York. Yeah. Okay. It’s making sense.”
“I guess it means more to you than it does to me then.”
“It will have to stay that way, cowboy, for reasons that touch neither of us directly. Well. Are you game for another game?”
“I’m just getting warmed up, guy.”
Bolan grinned. “I sort of figured that. Okay. Awhile ago you were saying something about a spontaneous coffee break. How does that work?”
“You just get on the air and announce it. Before you can let go of the button, you’ve got a swarm.”
“Truckers too?”
“Truckers especially. Particularly if the hand on the button belongs to a sweet-talking beaver. What are you working?”
“A trucker’s convention,” Bolan said thoughtfully. “Maybe. You know the territory better than I do. Tell me what the chances are. I want a solid embargo on all of Sciaparelli’s merchandise. I may even go for a blockade—if it swings that way and if we can get some players. What do you think?”
“I guess I can get the players,” the cowboy replied thoughtfully, “but I don’t know how you would game-plan it.”
“What’s wrong with spontaneous?” Bolan asked with a cool smile.
The guy grinned back. “An embargo via Citizens Band? Hell. Why not? We do everything else on the damned thing. Why not?”
Bolan dug into his pocket and passed a small notebook to the Georgia Cowboy. “There’s your list of embargoed depots. Go get your rig. It’s just around the bend, buried in the bushes. I’ll be guarding Channel nineteen. Let’s move it quick. I want this thing going down before nightfall.”
“What about the ladies?”
“I’ll tuck them in. You’d better get moving.”
They shook hands.
Reynolds said, “Thanks for more than you could understand, Big B.”
Bolan slapped the guy on the bottom and sent him on his way.
He understood.
And it was a proud thing to see a winner stepping away from a loser’s tracks.
Yeah. Bolan understood completely.
Years of constant terror could do it to a person. Bolan was well aware of that. It could be especially destructive to a soft and tender girl with strongly protective instincts—a girl such as Susan James Rossiter Sciaparelli.
Jennifer had been young enough that she “barely remembered” her father.
Susan remembered him well. And she remembered that terrible night when he’d been carried, kicking and screaming, from their modest Trenton home—never to be seen again, except in bits and pieces.
She remembered the hurried and breathless flight through the night when the other men came to bundle off the rest of the family, the quiet relocation to Georgia, the new identities, the whole strange quality of trying to adjust to a life of lies and eternal subterfuge.
Her mother had cracked early; she had never, in fact, quite recovered from that terrible night when her husband was dragged from her bed and carried away. It had been up to Susan to invent the lies for little Jennifer, to shield and protect her from the truth, to gently and carefully reprogram family memories and genealogies.
There was but one thing the mother had stood firmly against—the changing of Christian names. The girls were too old to be totally separated from their identities; the given names had stayed; the family name became Rossiter.
The physical life had been quite comfortable, from a purely financial standpoint, anyway. The monthly checks from “Daddy’s insurance” were regular and generous. Special checks had always come at Christmas time and on birthdays—from “Daddy’s estate.”
Gradually the inevitable adjustments came and there was nothing left to remind Susan of the past except for the occasional nightmare or a violent scene in a movie or the haunted look in her mother’s eyes.
Sciaparelli came into her life, in a physical sense, during her final year at college. He visited her in the dean’s office and identified himself as “Santa Claus and the Birthday Bunny.” He was, he explained, the executor of her father’s estate.
She would be “coming into things” soon, and there were certain important details she needed to learn about a “special trust” that she was soon to come into.
The special trust, it quickly developed, was nothing other than Sciaparelli himself. They were to be married. It was not a proposal but a disposal. There was no alternative. The “gentlemen in New York” who had been protecting the James ladies all these years insisted upon it. There would be grave consequences if Susan did not cooperate. It was, after all, for the continued protection of the family. If she refused, then the gentlemen in New York could no longer take responsibility. The money would be shut off, and the gentlemen would disassociate themselves from any further participation in the family’s welfare. Sciaparelli broadly hinted that each of the women would quickly share the fate of their father, once that protection had been lifted.
Everything considered, Susan James Rossiter had been a relatively happy and normal young woman of twenty-two. She had tended to shy away from serious involvement with young men—largely because of the secrets in her life—but she was immensely popular and much sought after. And she was subject to the normal expectations a young woman may have for love and marriage … one day.
Charles Sciaparelli, a thirty-five-year-old total stranger, did not quite fit those expectations.
However, Susan was a responsible young woman—and a practical one. She accepted the situation, precisely for what it was. The new circumstances of her life were, indeed, more like the awakening from a pleasant dream to a terrible reality. She had suddenly been transported eleven years into the past with nothing changed, except that now she was a grown woman with unavoidable responsibilities.
The rest, Bolan had pretty well understood already. Jennifer had been kept ignorant of the situation while “the protections” silently wove her closer and closer into an inescapable web of confinement and entrapment. Susan had actively participated in that deception—“for Jenny’s own good.”
When the mother died and full responsibility descended squarely upon Susan’s young shoulders, the strain slowly bore her down. She cracked, just as her mother had done—became “sickly” and a recluse, living in constant terror. What Jennifer had taken as “fascination” with regard to Susan’s feelings toward her husband was, in reality, abject surrender to the inescapable realities of an impossible life.
The worse part of all, from Bolan’s viewpoint, was that these girls had never been in any danger whatever. He was positive of that. It was even problematical that their father was guilty of any sin. The James women, regardless of what John Paul James may or may not have done, were innocent pawns in a wily game of move and counter-move by insanely clever old men, banked away for an incredible fifteen years against some unseeable fu
ture event for which their “tab” would be called in.
Sciaparelli had evidently been the keeper of the keys to that bank.
The guy had been in “investments” when the nightmare began for the James family. He had quickly escalated his position, perhaps parlaying some natural association with the caper into favored treatment for himself—and placing also, incidentally, his own future into that growing tab.
Whoever was providing that “bank” was not the man or men behind the attempted assassination of soon-to-be capo Jake Pelotti.
Huh-uh, the game did not work that way.
If the girls had been any sort of threat to the men behind the hit, they would have gone to the same fate—and at the same time—as their father.
The man or men behind the bank had to be “us,” not “them.”
Domino had said it well. “It wasn’t all that important, then. It’s been in the bank, waiting for importance. Now it’s important.”
Sure. The money that supported the James ladies for those fifteen incredible years had come from “us.” But, bet a life on it, there would be books to show that it had come, all those years, from “them.”
Incredible, sure. Nutty. Unthinkable, in a world where right made right and wrong made wrong.
Entirely credible, though, sane and very thinkable in a mirror-image world where right was dumb and wrong was smart.
Sciaparelli himself had to be, of course, party to the con. Which meant that his original sponsorship had been with “them.” The guy had traded his soul for a shot at the top with “us.” And now the “tab” was being called in. It was time for all players to stand up and remove their masks, reveal themselves to the nutty world of us and them.
Apparently, the dividing line between us and them was not all that stable at the moment. It rarely was. There was no clear understanding of who us and them really were; all of that depended upon the balance of power in that curious world. It was like a poker game with the deciding hand buried in what turned up in the hole cards. Identification of friend and foe could be fuzzy—just like Bolan’s, back at that “police” barricade.
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