She nodded.
“Isn’t there someone you can call and go visit for a couple of days?”
“I’ve only been in town three weeks. I don’t know anyone here that well.”
“How about a motel? For you alone? Look, I’m the one who caused part of the problem. Let me pay for two nights at a hotel for you. I’d feel better.”
She shook her head. “No, I promised myself I wasn’t going to run away from anything else. A guy wanted to marry me in Iowa. He was a ‘fine catch,’ my parents said. I liked him, but everything was so dull! So I ran away from him and my folks. But now I’m through with running.”
Bolan checked his watch. It was slightly after 3:00 a.m. The goons should have been here by now if they were coming. He stood up. “Keep your door locked and bolted. If anyone knocks, dial the police emergency number. Promise?”
She nodded.
“I better go. Let me have your phone number so I can call you tomorrow and make sure you’re all right.” He memorized the number on the phone.
At the door she crooked her finger at him, hugged him, then kissed him softly on the cheek.
“Thank you very much, Mack. I don’t know what I’d have done without you tonight. Please call tomorrow about noon. I come home for lunch.” She smiled, tired but still animated. “Maybe... maybe the next time you come calling, I’ll be better company.”
Bolan smiled. “Lock the door.” He stepped into the hall and waited until he heard the bolt slide in place. He went downstairs and moved his car so he could watch her second-floor apartment and the closest steps leading up to it. He did not need any sleep for a few more hours.
By four-thirty there had been no problems. The lights in her room had gone out five minutes after he left, and nothing else stirred in the complex. He fired up his car’s engine and crept away from the curb and down the street. He had to remember to call her at noon the next day.
Bolan slept until ten a.m., then quickly showered and dressed. He snapped on the tv set to catch the news.
“...and said he would have no comment. Here at home, police have identified the victim of an early-morning murder that on-the-scene people describe as a torture killing. Elizabeth Hanover, a student at the University of Baltimore, was found dead in her apartment this morning by a friend. The coroner said she had been gang-raped and tortured. There are no suspects in the crime and no apparent motive. One resident reported a car leaving the front of the apartment about four-thirty this morning.”
Bolan turned off the set and stared out the window. Either they had come quietly while he was in the car, or they had arrived after he left. He slammed his hand against the wall and swore.
Another innocent victim dead because of him! Someone who merely brushed against him for a few hours! If he had done it differently...
He hurried from the hotel and walked for two miles, working off some of his fury. Then he stopped at a phone and called the business number Nino had left for him.
“Cousin Harley — same old voice,” Nino said on the phone. “Figured I’d hear from you.”
“Nino, anybody in your family get a broken arm last night?”
Nino laughed. “Yeah, I figured you’d know about that. A little enforcer named Wally ‘The Beast’ Franconi. A damn tough cookie.”
“Not tough enough when I find him. Where does he hang out?”
“Franconi runs a poolroom over on Grand.”
“Thanks, Nino,” Bolan said, and hung up, figuring how to deal with Franconi. This had to be a day The Beast would remember for the rest of his life — no matter how few hours he had left to live, or how unpleasant they would be.
Capt. Harley Davis swore at the phone, then picked it up. “Davis here.”
“What the hell is going on down there, Davis? You know who this is. A perfectly legitimate nightclub gets blasted to rubble. Where the hell is our police protection?”
“Hey, easy. I’ve been having some problems. My force is spread thin. No way all the cops in the world can stop something like that. The attacker always has the advantage — you know that. We’re doing what we can to find the bomber and take care of him.”
“We’re doing the same thing, Davis. I’m pissed at you and the department. Hell, we pay taxes. What good does it do? Now three more places have closed because some nut set off smoke bombs in them. No big damage but a lot of sick people and mad ones.”
“He’s trying to scare you.”
“Who?”
“Hell, you know. Mack Bolan, the guy who calls himself the Executioner. He’s always after... places like yours.”
“So find him and nail his hide to the closest flagpole.”
“I’d like to. He’s made my damn ulcer kick up again.”
“Fuck your ulcer. I’m losing money.”
“We had to take two of your boys in on gambling charges. No way we could avoid it. I’ll set it up so they can get released on their own recognizance.”
“Damn well better.”
“Send me anything you have on this Bolan. Isn’t there a picture of him? I’ll check the wires on him. FBI had something going a while back.”
“You get something going. You shut this joker down, and do it damn quick!”
“Yeah. Nothing I would like better.”
They hung up. Captain Davis slouched in his chair in the glass-enclosed office. At least the glass went to the ceiling to provide a little privacy, soundwise. He was forty-nine years old and awaiting his thirty-year retirement, due in three years. Before then his plan was to have a nest egg to keep him on easy street. Hell, he might have to stay on a few years more, if he could keep raking in a hundred thousand a year from his friends.
He laughed softly. Friends, yes, just as long as they knew that he had enough on them to send them to prison for life. He had and they knew it. It became a delicate matter of compromise and cooperation.
Now this damn Executioner guy storms into town. Not even he could get in the way of the timetable. Davis took off his shoe and rubbed his foot. It still hurt once in a while. He’d been in too many fights with drunks and dopers to get off without any injuries. Even been shot twice. Damn, the years had gone fast!
He brushed back what was left of his brown hair and pushed his reading glasses in his pocket. Still had perfect distance vision — that was what counted now.
Bolan the Bastard, Jo Jo used to call him. Yeah. He’d have someone check the BPD files, then call the FBI.
In the meantime he could have a bigger problem. He consulted his phone list, then called a number he seldom used, almost never from this office. The call went to the Alonzo Fruit Company. When an operator answered, his message was brief.
“I’d like to talk to the man. This is Keno.” He hung up and returned to work on a burglary case that two of his detectives had almost wrapped up.
His phone rang and he picked it up. “Yeah, Davis here.” When the other voice came on he sat up straight and smoothed down his hair.
“Yes, sir, good to talk to you, too. Sir, this Mack Bolan matter. Is this going to hurt our timetable?”
The voice on the other end was slow, relaxed, with a touch of Old World Italian.
“We don’t think it will affect us. We know about this small problem and our people are working on it. We will solve it perhaps today, and then nothing will be in our way. This Bolan is human — he bleeds. If you bleed you can die.”
“Yes, sir. I’m doing what I can here. He’s a lawbreaker and we’ll exert the full power of the police in tracking him down.”
“Good. Now one small insect is left in your garden. We would be happy if it could be taken care of as
