April took a deep breath, nodded. "Let's do it."
They started up the stairs.
It was less than twelve hours and half a dozen bodies since they had blasted their way out of the survivalist village. For all they knew, the late Byron York was still floating around on the Allegheny River in the motorboat.
There had been a moment's hesitation as they hopped out of the boat and splashed their way to shore. April had paused, glanced over her shoulder at Byron York's lifeless body. The left arm dangled over the side, the fingers grazed the water like those of a lazy fisherman enjoying the solitude. She had spun sharply then and climbed toward the car, never looking back. They rocketed out of there, tires screaming through the sleepy woods until they found a public telephone.
Hal Brognola had listened to everything without interruption, letting Bolan finish every detail over the scrambled wire.
"Can you keep them off our backs for a while?" Bolan had asked.
"No sweat. Local law enforcement will have them rounded up in no time. Most of them will be behind bars for the murder of Grayson Strummer. The rest we'll keep occupied." A slight pause indicated that Hal was puffing thoughtfully on his cigar. "The way I read the situation now, York is dead, therefore the mission is dead. No way to trace Dante—we'll have to wait until he surfaces."
"Maybe not," Bolan said.
"Oh?"
"There's another possibility."
"Spill, Striker. What haven't you told me?"
"April overheard a name. We don't know what it means exactly, but she thinks it's a stationmaster."
"Stationmaster?"
"Yeah. A guy who puts people on the Radical Express, the 'underground railroad' system that stretches from Florida up to Canada, and from New York across to Los Angeles, with a few side tracks to Mexico, Cuba, Hawaii. It's a wilderness route more often than not, cutting through tracts that never see a cop, never see people. It's going to be tough."
"What's the name?"
"Newton. 'Gravity' Newton."
"Gravity Newton? That some kind of joke?"
"It's his fight name. He's a boxer. April heard Dante and York talking about him. Dante said something like, 'I hope Gravity's found an easier way to check out passengers.' "
"You have a location for this Gravity Newton?"
"Nope. If I did your job, Hal, what would be left for you to write about in your memoirs?"
Brognola laughed. "Give me your number." Bolan did. "Wait there."
Brognola hung up.
Five minutes later the pay phone jangled through the dark Sunoco station. A distant night bird tried to imitate the sounds as Bolan snatched the receiver. "Yeah?"
"Wilkes-Barre. Goodey's Gym."
"Got it. Anything else?"
There was a pause. Silent telephone wire stretched across three states. Then, "See you in California, Striker."
Click.
THE SIGN ON THE PEELING WALL was handmade, hastily scrawled with a black felt marker on the back of a cardboard flap torn from a packing box.
Goodey's Gym. Second Floor.
A faded gray arrow pointed up the stairs for those too punch-drunk to realize where the second floor might be. Above the cardboard sign was a fancy hand carved wooden sign with painted flowers, a Christian cross, a Star of David and a plump grinning Buddha.
"Covering all their bets," April said, pointing at the sign.
Church of Universal Being. Second Floor. Through Gymnasium.
They climbed three steps. On the wall was a jagged white line about a foot long, scratched through the paint with a knife. Written above the line in pen was the caption: Floodline. June 20, 1972. Thanks, Agnes.
"What's that mean?" April asked.
"Tropical storm Agnes came through here that year and wiped out a lot of the Eastern Seaboard.
Killed a hundred twenty-nine people, left another hundred fifteen thousand homeless. Damage added up to more than three billion dollars."
"I remember that now. I was eighteen. My sophomore year. Those newspaper photos of houses floating through shopping malls. People rescued from their attics by boat. It was horrible."
"Yeah, Wilkes-Barre was mostly underwater. It's taken this long for a lot of people to get back on their feet again. Those that could."
As they climbed the narrow stairs, they heard the sounds of heavy punching bags being whomped, speed bags being pummeled rhythmically, felt the vibration of men running in place. The odor was strong and slightly sour. The smell of heavy sweat. And something more. Desperation. Hope. Anger. Exhaustion.
Bolan squeezed April's arm. "Let's get the show on the road. Remember, act sexy."
The place at the top of the warped stairs was obviously Goodey's Gym. The huffing and panting of activity was everywhere. Fourteen boys and men jabbed, stalked, hooked and punched various bags and each other.
As they walked through the gym, Bolan noticed the break in concentration as the fighters caught sight of April. Gone were her wet jeans and sopping turtleneck sweater from last night. But even a hastily purchased denim skirt and plaid blouse from a cheap five-and-dime looked elegant on her. Bolan knew she had put herself through college as a professional model. She had a tall athletic body that had been honed on the swim team in high school. She still worked out regularly: aerobics, gymnastics, ballet. That was one of the things that separated her from those who starved themselves to thinness, and who had no tone to their muscles. April's body looked capable, useful.
"You lost, sport?" asked a fat bald man in a dirty white shirt. Sweat stains wreathed his armpits. He scratched his swollen gut as he spoke, looking April up and down with glazed eyes.
"Who runs this place?" Bolan asked.
The fat man jerked his head to the right. "Frank Goodey. The guy with the cucumber nose behind the counter there." He studied Bolan for a moment with darting, appraising eyes. "You a fighter?"
"When I have to be."
"Southpaw?"
"Sometimes."
"Kind of old for the game, aren't you?" "Kind of fat to be asking personal questions, aren't you?"
"Hey, man," growled a big kid about seventeen, stepping away from the heavy bag he'd been hitting. "Watch your mouth, pal. That's my manager you're wisin' off to."
Bolan had not moved his eyes from the fat man, who winced from the glare, turned and shoved his fighter back toward the bag. "Just keep jabbing, kid. Quit dropping the right. How many times I gotta tell you that? Jab, jab, jab!"
Bolan and April walked over to the window counter. The small room on the other side was filled with a thick haze of cigarette smoke. All of it came from the thin man with the cucumber nose.
"You Goodey?" Bolan asked.
The guy took a long drag on his cigarette without looking up from his paper, the Racing Form. Excess smoke curled out between his lips.
"I'm looking for Gravity Newton."
This earned a heavy-lidded stare. Goodey screwed the cigarette into the corner of his mouth. As he dropped the paper onto his desk, ashes flew from the overflowing ashtray. His nose was flared and flat. An ex-pug's nose. "Ten bucks."
Bolan slid the bill across the counter top.
Goodey did not reach for it. Instead he grabbed a pair of sixteen-ounce Las-Dos boxing gloves and a set of Everlast wraps and tossed them onto the counter.
Bolan realized that the ten dollars was not for information but for equipment rental. "I'm just here to talk," Bolan said.
"That's up to Newton. But people come to my gym to fight, not talk. I still got rent to pay."
Bolan picked up the gloves and wraps. "Where's Gravity?"
Goodey puffed out a cloud of gray smoke and nodded at the ring. Two boys barely in their teens were sparring, taking instruction from a muscular Hispanic hanging on the ropes. "Newton's the one coaching."
"Thanks." Bolan tucked the gloves under his arm as he steered April by the elbow toward the ring. It was a raised platform that dominated half of the room.
"I guess this i
s the best approach," April sighed as her heels clattered across the wooden floor.
"Right now it's the only approach," Bolan muttered. "It's the only one we have time for."
Bolan guided April to one of the folding chairs ringside. She sat and crossed her legs. She revealed as much thigh as would cause enough distraction for Bolan to approach Gravity Newton.
"You Newton?" Bolan asked.
"Jab, Pablo!" the Hispanic urged, ignoring Bolan. "Don't slap. Snap it out." He turned, glanced down at Bolan with a frown. His face was young, early twenties, and still unmarked except for a slight scar under the left eyebrow. "I don't know you," he said and turned away. "Pick it away, Tommy. One quick movement!"
Bolan stepped up onto the platform. He leaned on the ropes next to Newton. The two men were about the same height and build. "I'm interested in doing some traveling. Friend of mine said you might recommend a safe method of transportation. Byron York.'
Newton turned, looked Bolan up and down, then nodded at the gloves. "Put 'em on."
"These? Look, pal, I'm just here to talk about a mutual friend."
Gravity Newton smiled a perfect set of teeth and climbed between the ropes into the ring. "This is where I do all my talking."
Bolan had expected a test, but not this. He climbed down from the apron of the ring and walked over to April. "He wants to fight."
"Fight? What for?"
"Somebody desperate enough to get on the Radical Express obviously has to take a beating for the privilege," Bolan answered sourly. He peeled his shirt off and began winding the Everlast wraps around his hands, tying them off at the wrists. Then he slipped his hands into the spongy red gloves. "Tie them tight," he told April.
Newton had already herded the kids out of the ring and was stripped down to his trunks. He was bouncing up and down, smacking his gloved fists together. A plastic mouthpiece stretched his upper lip into a grotesque smile.
A few of the other fighters began to stare at the ring. A couple drifted over to watch, towelling sweat from their faces. Others followed.
"He looks hard," April whispered.
Bolan looked over his shoulder at Newton. "Yeah."
She squeezed the knot on the glove to make sure it was tight, then squeezed his hands through the padded gloves. "Good luck."
He nodded at her, turned and climbed up onto the ring. With a graceful movement he ducked between the ropes and began bouncing in his corner, loosening his legs and shaking out his arms. It wasn't the first time he had been in the ring. But the last time had been years ago, for fun. Since then, all the sport had gone out of his fighting. The purpose was no longer to win, it was to survive.
"Okay, senor," Gravity Newton called across the ring in his thick Hispanic accent. "When the bell sounds, we meet in the middle."
"How many rounds?" Bolan asked.
Newton laughed. "However many it takes."
6
The two hard men faced each other across the smooth canvas of the ring, the air between them thick with violence.
Bolan took deep breaths. One of the biggest problems boxers had in the ring was remembering to breathe correctly. Often they would charge ahead, throwing punches, blocking others; within minutes they'd be exhausted, because they had been breathing only sporadically, or shallowly, or not at all.
Bolan wore chinos and Nike sneakers. April carried the Beretta 93-R in her tote bag, since to these radicals it would be appropriate for two people on the run to have at least one gun. If neither of them had one, it would be suspicious.
The bell clanged starkly. The two men stalked toward each other. Bolan, stripped to the waist, displayed firm muscles, hard from constant use, forged in the furnace of deadly action daily, glistening now like marble.
Gravity Newton looked no less formidable. He was younger, perhaps, and with fewer scars. His dark skin was a map of the same bulging muscles that wrapped Bolan's body with taut grace, his stomach just as corrugated. The boxer tucked his chin down and bounced toward his amateur opponent.
Bolan easily picked off Newton's first jab. The second and third jabs were faster, but Bolan side stepped them. He never even saw the fourth. It caught him on top of the forehead and sent him stumbling back several steps. A murmur arose from the spectators.
"You are fast, senor," Newton grinned. "But not fast enou—"
Bolan had feigned a movement to the right, now exploded a left hook over the top of Newton's rising left hand. It caught the young boxer on the ear. The guy's legs buckled slightly.
Before Bolan could follow up, Newton had danced nimbly out of the way.
Bolan chased him across the ring, hoping to tie him up, but he was no match for Newton's faster footwork. Bolan was already breathless from his natural response to attack and defense. It was nonstop and it was exhausting. Bolan knew there was no way he would beat a professional boxer in the long run. A punch in the face from a professional was the equivalent of being struck by a portable typewriter swung twice around the body.
Newton backed up against the ropes as Bolan pursued him, brought his gloves up to protect his face, pressed his elbows to his ribs to protect his body. Bolan snapped off a couple of jabs at Newton's face, but could not punch through the gloves. Then he ducked down and pummeled the body with two rib crackers, yet each was blocked by Newton's elbows.
He knew what Newton was doing, waiting to see if Bolan would punch himself out early, like most newcomers to the ring did. Anxious to win, or fearing to lose, they threw everything within the first minute of the round; then breathless and arm weary, they would be picked apart by their still-fresh opponent.
Realizing he was not going to break through Newton's defense, Bolan backed up into the middle of the ring and waited. Newton peered at him between his gloves.
Suddenly Newton was all movement, bobbing and weaving, dancing to the left and right—cutting the ring off, backing Bolan into the corner with zinging jabs and overhand rights.
Bolan managed to block many of the blows, knowing full well that Newton was not using all his speed or skill in this test. But a few bombshells managed to blast through.
A left hook twisted Bolan's head around; a body shot bruised his ribs. He felt the rope biting into his back as Newton pressed even closer, exhaling air through his flaring nostrils with each punch like a snorting dragon.
Bolan could have stayed in the corner until the end of the round, blocking most punches, surviving those he didn't. It might have been enough to pass this test of Newton's. No real physical harm would be done, a few bruises, some tender spots.
But that was not enough. Bolan needed some negotiating leverage with this "stationmaster."
He tucked his chin down, blocked Newton's hook and lurched forward. He thrust his fist into the Hispanic stomach. The fist hesitated when it slammed into granite stomach muscles, but Bolan rammed it into them again. And again. Until he felt Newton's body begin to sag from the blows.
Newton tried to punch his way out, but Bolan stayed right up against him, steam-drilling his punches to the body, never once letting Newton get his feet set. It was a clumsy maneuver, but it worked. It killed precious seconds and it kept the younger man from exhibiting any more boxing skills at the expense of Bolan's chin.
The Hispanic tried to push Bolan back. Bolan used his old football skills to keep burrowing in, pinning Newton against the ropes. He windmilled more punches to the body, largely just to keep Newton busy while the clock ticked closer to the end of the round. He figured there couldn't be more than twenty seconds left.
A lot could happen in twenty seconds.
Newton suddenly spun out of Bolan's grasp, double-pumping a torpedoing jab into Bolan's face. Bolan felt the non-sensation of his jaw going numb. A right cross hurtled at him like a truck. He barely managed to block it. But not so the follow-up left hook, which sledged him in the neck. He felt the vertebrae in his spine shift. Bolan was tired, real tired. Newton was circling him, flicking the left endlessly into his face.
Bolan covered up and bulled forward again, crowding Newton's long arms.
Taking advantage of no referee, Bolan kept Newton's arms trapped while he catapulted a sudden powerful uppercut that snapped Newton's mouth shut with a loud crack, lifting him slightly off the canvas and sending him reeling backward into the ropes.
Newton bounced off them from their tautness. He shook his head, then scowled at Bolan. He realized to what extent he had seriously underestimated his opponent's ability. He intended his expression to indicate that Bolan would be treated like a pro from now on. Mercilessly.
Newton bounced up on his toes. He brought up his gloves to the classic no-nonsense boxing stance and glided forward. It was unsettling to see a man recover so quickly from a punch as devastating as the one he'd just taken. Bolan had seen bigger men flop unconscious to the ground from a lesser blow. But boxers were not ordinary men. They were among the best conditioned athletes in the world. And this one was mad as hell.
The bell clanged for the end of the round.
Newton hesitated, obviously considered continuing the fight. Bolan waited with his fists raised, legs apart.
"First one you ain't decked within a minute," called a nearby pug good-naturedly. "Losin' yer touch, Gravity?"
The men continued to make jokes and laugh as they wandered away from the ring and back to their respective workouts. Within seconds the same old sounds of punching bags and rope skipping filled the gym as if nothing had happened.
Bolan climbed down from the ring and offered his gloves palm up to April. She began untying the laces.
His chest heaved as he gulped air. His face and body felt as if tenderized by a sledge hammer. On the other side of the room, Newton did not even look tired.
"You okay?" April asked, trying to keep as calm as she could.
"Sure, sure. I murdered the bum."
"You kept him from murdering you."
"Same thing," Bolan smiled. He pulled off the gloves and unwound the wraps, his back purposely toward Newton. "What's he doing now?"
"Coming this way," she whispered.
Bolan did not turn around. He pretended not to notice Newton's approaching footfalls. When Newton was finally standing right next to him, Bolan looked up from the saturated wraps he was rolling.
Executioner 057 - Flesh Wounds Page 4