"Jesus."
"Best I recollect, he wasn't there."
"I don't know how to take you, mister."
"Waiting for suggestions?"
"You've got business here, remember?"
"I remember."
"Listen, I don't like to drink and run, but if you wrap it up by closing time..." Vicky flicked a glance in the direction of the entrance as she started to get up, froze halfway out of her chair and settled back again. "Well, speak of the devil."
A hard-looking middle-aged man with a crew cut had entered the bar, trailed by two younger men in their twenties. They settled on bar stools at one end, away from the door.
"Mason Ritter?"
"And friends."
"He looks pissed."
"That's his normal expression. I hear that he smiles when he's out with the wrecking crew doing his thing, but you sure couldn't prove it by me."
"What's the wrecking crew?"
"Never you mind."
Bolan glanced at his watch: 8:14.
"Well, I guess there's no time like the present."
"Good luck, man. You'll need it."
"I make my own luck."
Bolan knocked back the last of his beer, took his time about rising. If Brown was on time, he should be in the parking lot now. He might well have observed Ritter's arrival.
Bolan was halfway to the bar when he heard the door creak open. A hush fell on the patrons of the Blackboard. Turning, Bolan watched as Wilson Brown approached the bar. Three other large black men followed him in single file.
"Niggers!" someone whispered, pointing out the obvious to anyone who might be blind as well as drunk.
Behind the warrior, Mason Ritter set his rum and Coke down with force enough to spray the bar. His bodyguards were on their feet before the wizard rose, but Bolan had a stake in getting there before the Klansmen could connect.
"Say, boy!" he called to Wilson Brown, eliciting a glare of pure contempt. "You lost, or what?"
"I'm thirsty," Brown replied, dismissing him. "Go on and mind your business."
"We're fresh out of everything," the barman drawled, evoking nervous chuckles from the regulars.
"That bottle looks right full to me," Brown answered, pointing toward a fifth of Seagram's on the shelf behind the bar. "They all look full."
"That's what they call an optical illusion," Bolan sneered, moving to intercept Brown, placing himself between Brown and the bar. "Sometimes it seems like what you see's not what you get."
"We came in here to have a drink, not look for trouble."
"Well, I'd say you can't have one without the other, boy."
Brown glanced across his shoulder toward the barman. "Law says if you're open to the public you serve everybody."
"Law?" the Executioner cut in. "Which law is that?"
"The Constitution. Ever heard of it?"
"Not recently."
He had the rednecks now. A snicker of appreciation ran around the room and back again. He felt the wizard and his henchmen watching, interested.
"Well, that figures," Brown replied. "Most peckerwoods I know can't even read."
Bolan pulled the punch, but it was solid, even so, and Wilson rocked backward on his heels. The blow that Bolan soaked up in return was hard enough to throw him back against the bar, but he rebounded swiftly, slipping beneath the black man's guard to hit him with a flying tackle.
"Help him!"
"Kick their asses!"
They were grappling, falling, as the room exploded into chaos. Bolan clung to Brown and braced himself for his collision with the hardwood floor.
5
Within the time it takes to drain a shot glass, blacks and whites were grappling in hand-to-hand combat. The odds were long against the new arrivals, but Wilson Brown had chosen three hulks for his backup, and some of the Blackboard's regular patrons hung back from the fray, content with their roles as observers at ringside. The mournful lament of the jukebox was drowned by the harsh sounds of battle.
Bolan ducked a flying beer mug and heard it crash against the wall behind him. Feinting to his left as Brown fired off a looping roundhouse punch, he took it on the shoulder, jarred by the impact, even though the former lineman must have pulled it at the final instant. Bolan had a new respect for movie stuntmen as he jabbed a right at Brown, avoiding contact with his chin by a fraction of an inch.
A reeling body caught Bolan from his blind side, staggering him as he spun to face his new assailant. Bleeding from his flattened nose, a chunky regular was pawing at the air with ham-size fists, retreating as he realized he had collided with a white man. One of Brown's companions, taking advantage of the guy's confusion, stepped in close and threw a vicious sucker punch that took his adversary down and out.
At the bar, Mason Ritter was perched upon a stool, cheering on his bodyguards as they began to double-team a burly black man, pummeling him simultaneously from both sides. Their target tried to dance away out of reach, but they were after him like jackals, weaving, jabbing, timing measured blows for maximum effect. It was apparent to the Executioner that they enjoyed their work.
He wondered, fleetingly, how fully Brown had briefed his men. In an instant he had his answer, as a big hand grasped his shoulder, spinning him around, and a hard fist hurtled in to block his field of vision. Bolan saved his eye by shifting slightly to the left, but he could do nothing to block the punch. He took it on his cheek, relaxing just enough to let the impact drive him backward, arms flung out to cushion his collision with the nearest wall. Rebounding, dizzy, Bolan braced himself to spar with the enraged behemoth, but he never got the chance.
From out of nowhere, Ritter's bullyboys tore into Bolan's adversary, firing kidney punches, slamming him behind the ear with heavy fists. The black man staggered, grimacing with pain, and turned on the two attackers like an angry bear. A backhand rocked the taller of the Klansmen on his heels, crimson geysers spouting from his nostrils as he stumbled out of range. The other dug inside a pocket of his jeans, produced a switchblade knife and snapped it open in a single practiced movement. He feinted left and right by turns, alert for any opening.
Bolan scooped up a beer bottle from the floor, spilling the last of its contents over his hand and forearm as he weighed it in his palm. He gauged the distance, cocked his arm and let the empty bottle fly. It missed his black assailant's ear by inches, spinning in its flight, and struck the sneering Klansman squarely in the forehead with a hollow clonk. Unlike the breakaways used in Hollywood, the bottle did not shatter, but it did not need to. Velocity and impact did the job, as Bolan's target dropped his knife and folded like a rag doll to the floor.
As Bolan took time to glance around the milling barroom, he saw Mason Ritter heading for an exit. The soldier turned — and ran directly into Wilson Brown. The ex-lieutenant wrapped him in a bear hug, hoisting him off the floor and swinging him around like a child. It was a rough maneuver, but it gave Brown time to speak.
"I'm too damned old for this," he hissed. "I hope to hell somebody's called the cavalry."
As if in answer to his words, the Blackboard's door slammed open to admit a stream of deputies in riot helmets, nightsticks drawn and ready as they waded in. Brown hurled Bolan sideways through a short 360, sending him tumbling across a table that collapsed beneath his weight. Bolan came up staggering, saw Brown and company retreating toward the alley exit, where they met another team of riot troopers.
It took a few minutes for the officers to put the cuffs on Brown and his companions, for they had to stop several times to club and pummel whites who found a final cheap shot irresistible. Finally the blacks, and half a dozen Blackboard regulars, were lined against the wall in manacles.
When Bolan realized the deputies were almost ready to depart, he charged on impulse, a riot billy glancing off his shoulder as he threw a punch at Wilson Brown. He grazed the big man's cheek and was rewarded with a hammerlock that choked off his wind and brought him gasping to his knees. He offered no resistance
as handcuffs were tightened on his wrists and he was wrestled upright to his feet.
A scowling deputy jabbed a nightstick under his chin. "You want it, boy, you got it. One more fancy move and you'll be pissing blood for a week."
"I hear you," Bolan growled.
"I thought you might."
The deputy patted Bolan down for weapons, came up empty and directed him to follow the last prisoner in line. A sheriff's van was waiting in the parking lot. The whites were marched inside and told to sit on benches, while the blacks were muscled into cruisers for a segregated ride downtown. Bolan found himself seated next to one of Mason Ritter's muscle men, the purpling goose egg on the bodyguard's forehead offering the Executioner a modicum of satisfaction in his own discomfort.
He was not concerned about the prospect of a night in jail. The records from his brief incarceration in McLary County, Texas, had been lifted and expunged with an assist from Hal Brognola's Justice contacts. If the deputies in Little Rock were interested enough to put his prints and picture through the national computers, they would call up the cover jacket prepped by Leo Turrin for "Mike Bowers." At the moment, he was clean — no wants or warrants — but his fabricated record would reveal a history of violent crime with racial motivations worthy of attention from the Vanguard or the Teutonic Knights.
The Executioner was counting on it.
At the sheriff's station, they were rousted from the van and ordered into single file, conducted through a metal door that slammed behind them with a grim finality. The corridor was painted beige and lit by overhead fluorescents, institutional and cheerless. Bolan followed Ritter's stooge, with other prisoners behind him, led and driven by the deputies until they reached a holding tank.
In fact, there were two pens, adjacent to each other, with a narrow walkway in between. The occupants of one cage had an unobstructed view of persons in the other; they could carry on conversations, jeer at and curse each other to their hearts' content, but they could never touch. Not quite. It was a simple but effective isolation system, made to order for the separation of combatants from a riot.
Like tonight.
He saw that Wilson Brown and his companions were already lodged inside one holding cell, their manacles removed. As Bolan and the other whites approached, the blacks formed a line against the bars, reviling their assailants from the Blackboard.
"Well, now, lookee what the cat dragged in."
"You like them bracelets, white meat?"
"Step on over here, you want a piece of me."
One of the jailers raked his stick across the bars and drove them back a pace. "Shut up in there," he drawled, evincing no great interest in the conduct of his charges.
His cuffs removed, Bolan entered the cage and found himself a bench against one wall. The others followed singly, some rubbing their wrists, several drifting toward the bars that faced the other holding pen, picking up verbally where the brawl had left off.
"You niggers better count your blessings."
"Sheriff save your asses, that's for sure."
"Next time, boy. Next time."
"We'll be looking forward to it."
Each new gibe elicited an angry answer from the blacks, but with their prisoners confined, the deputies were satisfied to let them waste their breath on empty threats. Three-quarters of an hour passed before the jailers started booking one man at a time, beginning with Brown and his comrades. As each returned from the booking room, catcalls and curses greeted him, evoking responses in kind. Several black men who had been in the holding cage prior to the brawlers' arrival were inspired by the white's ethnic slurs to support Brown and company, shouting derision at Bolan and his fellow jailbirds. By the time the jailer got around to booking rednecks, angry pandemonium reigned in the pens.
Bolan held himself aloof, retreating to a corner of the cage, resisting an impulse to join in the verbal melee. Any drunken idiot could curse and shout; to impress the members of the Vanguard, it would take deeds, not hasty words. His judgment was vindicated when Ritter's muscle broke off from the jeering group and took a seat beside him.
"Do I know you?"
Bolan shook his head. "I don't think so."
"Bobby Shelton."
Bolan took the offered hand and felt the Klansman test his grip. "Mike Bowers."
"Glad to know you."
"Come here often?"
Shelton snickered. "I've been in and out. They know me."
"Well, I guess they'll know me now "
"Is that a problem?"
Bolan made a show of thinking that one over, taking his time. "Shouldn't be."
"Have you got paper out?"
"You ask a lot of questions "
"It's my nature."
"It could be unhealthy."
"I've lasted this long."
A deputy was eyeing Bolan from the entrance to the cage. "Next man," he barked. "That's you, boy."
Bolan let himself be guided along the corridor, turned left on orders from the jailer, halted at the booking desk. There his prints were rolled for posterity, and after he cleaned his hands with liquid soap he stood before a stationary camera. The wall behind him had been calibrated so that a subject's height was automatically displayed in every mug shot. Bolan took the numbered slate that he was offered, held it under his chin for the full-face shot, then turned on command to offer the lens a profile.
Standing once again before the booking desk, he emptied his pockets, watching as a jailer picked through crumpled bills and scattered change, examining his wallet.
"Name?"
"Mike Bowers."
"Mike, or Michael?"
"Suit yourself."
'Don't sass me, boy."
"It's Michael."
They ran through the litany of vitals, while the booking sergeant pecked, two fingered, at an IBM Selectric, filling in the necessary forms in triplicate. When he was asked about prior arrests, the soldier answered, "None." A background check would show that he was lying, but it would not hurt for them to do their jobs. In any case, "Mike Bowers" — had he existed — would certainly have lied in an attempt to spare himself further scrutiny.
Bob Shelton was taken for booking, departing with his bully's swagger more or less intact. After twenty minutes he returned, favored Bolan with a cocky smile and rejoined him in the corner.
"Piece of cake," he said. "I reckon we'll be out of here inside an hour."
"Yeah?"
"I've got a couple friends outside."
"That's nice."
"The bond on bullshit raps like this is never more than two, three hundred dollars."
Bolan grimaced. "Well, that leaves me out. Or I should say it leaves me in."
"You broke?"
"I figure I could scratch up a hundred if it was life or death."
"Sounds like you need yourself a job."
"That's easy said."
"What kind of work you interested in?"
"You hiring?"
"I might know some people."
"Well, in that case, make it something with travel, adventure, all the right fringe benefits."
"Sounds like the service," Shelton cracked.
"No thanks. I've been there. Special Forces."
"Any combat time?"
"I did a couple tours in Nam."
"Gook-killer, huh?"
"I bagged my share."
The Klansman tapped his chest. "Marines. I had a cousin in Grenada, but I never got the chance myself. The way these politicians pussyfoot around today, the fighting man's a damned fifth wheel." He paused. "I take it that you didn't like the military?"
Bolan took his cue. "I liked it fine, the times we were allowed to do our job," he growled. "Seems like my second tour was mostly wasted kissing up to ne-groes, running errands for a bunch of faggot officers who never spent a weekend in the field."
"I guess you saw a lot of that."
"Enough to last a lifetime." Bolan glowered, playing to the military records inserted in his jacket b
y the man from Justice. "If it hadn't been for dark meat, I might still be in."
"How's that?"
"My second tour, they stuck us with a spade lieutenant." Bolan glanced across at Wilson Brown and caught the big man glaring at him through a double set of tempered bars. "He liked to send the white boys out on recon while he kept the soulmates safe and sound in camp. The second time I lost a squad, I kicked his ass and drew a general discharge."
"Nigger lovers stick together."
"Tell me something new."
"No promises," the Klansman said, "but I might know a place where someone with your kind of military background and experience could find a steady job."
"How steady?"
"If it flies, you'd be full-time."
"What kind of work?"
"Some training exercises, this and that. If everything pans out, there might be free-lance business on the side. You up for night work?"
"I don't mind."
"All right. So let me check it out when we get done with all this shit. I wouldn't be surprised if you were just what the doctor ordered."
Bolan fought the urge to smile, remaining deadpan. A display of zeal was out of character, and Shelton clearly did not have the final say on his acceptance by the Vanguard or the Klan. There would be precautions, screenings, an initiation if he was accepted. Once inside the paramilitary clique, he still could not aspire to membership in the inner circle. As the new boy on the block, he would be treated with reserve, perhaps a measure of suspicion. Infiltration by informers was a constant problem for domestic terrorists, and no group had been so beset by federal agents as the Ku Klux Klan. If Ritter and his partner Freeman had learned anything at all from recent history, they had to be aware of the necessity for caution in recruiting members.
It was Bolan's task to sell himself, to present the image of a proper bigot who could serve the Vanguard and the Teutonic Knights to good effect. It would not do to overplay his hand, to appear too rabid in the early stages of recruitment. Spies and plants might come complete with swastika tattoos and well-rehearsed speeches, but Bolan had a subtler course in mind. He would allow his prey to do the courting, demonstrate enough reserve to make them understand that he could take or leave their fellowship. If they were hungry, shopping for a man with Bolan's expertise, the b should be sufficient. Either way, it was the only plan that seemed to offer any prospects of success.
The Fiery Cross Page 5