about Rivera, something indefinably wrong, which set El Toro's teeth on edge and made him watch the man more closely than he had the other
'I want Raoul,' Toro told him simply.
'Raoul?'
The man was stalling, trying to come up with something he could use to bargain for his life.
Rivera managed to dredge up a twisted grimace of defiance, jaw thrust out, lips curling in a sneer.
Emiliano slapped him hard across the back of the skull with his open hand, cutting off the obscene retort, snapping Julio's teeth together sharply.
Rivera glanced warily around at Emiliano, shaking his head as if to clear the ringing in his ears.
Toro shrugged, placing his automatic on the counter beside the sink. He began rummaging through drawers, selecting kitchen implements, examining each in turn before lining them up on the counter top.
A butcher knife.
An ice pick.
A skewer.
A meat cleaver.
Rivera's eyes were widening, and his mouth fell open as he watched Toro walk in front of him to stand before the kitchen stove. The Cuban turned on one of the front burners, a blue gas flame hissing into life inches from his hand.
He brought the butcher knife back over to the stove and propped its blade across the burner, the wide tip distorting the flame. Within moments its razor edge was glowing red, catching a fire of its own and reflecting it into the Cuban's eyes.
Toro turned, leaning back against the counter with his arms crossed, the hissing burner close beside his hip.
'Now, Julio... Raoul.'
Julio did not respond. Instead he whimpered, struggling with the handcuffs, straining at them until the steel bracelets had worn a bloody groove in both wrists.
And Julio Rivera talked.
About Raoul Ornelas... Jose 99... a great deal more.
When they were finished, forty minutes later, Toro knew he had to get in touch with Bolan. Soon.
The warrior's life — and all their lives — could well be riding on the outcome of that call.
12
Mack Bolan pushed his Firebird eastward, the satchel full of cash on the seat beside him as he left the Club Uhuru, rolling through the heart of Liberty City toward his next target destination. The numbers were falling now, with half a dozen stops to make and no time left to waste.
Liberty City was Miami's ghetto, tucked away just south of the Opa-locka airport, out of sight for most of white Miami, and largely out of mind. On many city maps it was a blank space, the streets ignored as most of the neighborhood's population had also been ignored until very recently.
Black rage had torn the neighborhood apart in recent months, and the scars of that explosion were still visible. The fuse was still sputtering, and every public official in Miami knew that it was only a matter of time until more violence rocked the area. Suspicion, hatred and paranoia on both sides had made the area a pressure cooker, and the lid was ready to blow if someone turned the heat up, even fractionally.
Bolan's target was a numbers countinghouse some six blocks over from the Club Uhuru. The Executioner knew that all the front men and the players would be black, but it was still a Mafia franchise, run behind the scenes by one Dukey Aiuppa.
Aiuppa's real name was Vincenzo, but he won his street name from a string of welterweight bouts he fought professionally before discovering that punching men — or women and children — outside the ring brought higher pay.
Instead of knockouts now, he had a sheet of thirty-five arrests behind him, without a single conviction. A Brooklyn transplant who had worked his way up through the local ranks, Aiuppa ruled his ghetto fiefdom like a colonial warlord, surrounded by stormtroops of all nationalities and colors, reaping sky-high profits from a people mired in poverty and filth.
Aiuppa's countinghouse was tucked away above a pool hall frequented by pimps and pushers. Bolan found his target and parked the Firebird a half block down, unable to get closer because of the Cadillacs and Lincolns lined against the curb on either side of the street. He walked back, feeling hostile eyes upon him as pedestrians turned to stare at his expensive tan-colored suit, dark-brown silk shirt and white silk tie. He drew grim comfort from the Beretta 93-R, which he wore beneath his left arm in a shoulder harness.
He reached the pool hall, pushed on through the swinging doors in front. The pool hall proper was in semidarkness, but he was still able to pick out the scattering of players grouped around two tables on his left. They were watching him, whispering among themselves, but Bolan ignored them, moving between the other deserted tables and on to a flight of wooden stairs set against the back wall of the long, narrow room.
A black man stood on guard at the base of the stairs, watching Bolan approach. He stood with arms crossed, back against the banister, prepared to block the Executioner's progress.
'What's happenin'?'
'I'm looking for the Duke,' Bolan told him.
'He ain't expectin' any visitors.'
Bolan flashed a stony grin.
'Well, let's surprise him.'
'He don't like surprises, man.'
The Executioner shrugged, the smile softening.
'In that case...'
He moved as if to push on up the stairs past the strong-arm, then pivoted with lightning speed as the guy tried to block him. Bolan ducked beneath a looping right cross, driving the rigid fingers of one hand deep beneath the black man's rib cage, punching the wind out of him and doubling him over.
The Executioner seized an arm and twisted it behind the slugger's back, high up between his shoulders. Then Bolan put his full weight behind the movement as he drove the man into the wall beside the stairs. One hard knee rocketed in, found a kidney once, twice, and the muscle slid to the floor in a boneless sprawl, leaving a blood smear along the wall where his face had made bruising contact with the plaster.
Bolan mounted the stairs, three at a time, barging on through an unguarded door at the top of the landing.
Five startled faces turned to face him, only two of them black. The men were ringed around a small desk piled with money — both bills and coins — and several thousand crumpled betting slips. Bolan quickly recognized
