Detroit Deathwatch

'That's what I've been hoping to find out. Logic tells me that she's dead. But I have to know. You understand?'

Bolan understood. People who lived large also grieved large, and there was no shrugging off the uncertain fate of a comrade in arms.

He left the bed and pulled the girl to her feet, then hustled her along to the bathroom, where they shared another shower, much briefer and considerably more subdued this time. Later he shaved while she put a breakfast together, and it was not until they were facing each other across the dining table that the conversation was resumed.

'Tell me about it,' Bolan commanded.

She nibbled daintily at crisp bacon and said, 'Well … where do I start? Some background, I guess. Toronto, let's start there. It's Georgette's home town. They've been having this problem for — oh, I guess a couple of years. Small at first, but growing all the time. Now the Canadian authorities are in full alarm. Girls disappearing, see, I mean, vanishing. Never to be seen again. Each of the victims is a kid, still in her teens or barely out of them. All beautiful. All from the edge of show business and — '

'Which edge?'

Toby wrinkled her nose. 'Mostly legitimate. A few of the victims had been playing around with porno movie makers. But most were just kids looking for a legitimate start somewhere. Beauty contestants, singers, go-go girls, you know the routine. Someplace to showcase beauty, a speck or two of talent, and a dream. A lot of those dreams turned to nightmares, I'd guess.'

Bolan sipped his coffee, then stared into the cup with see-nothing eyes. 'Prostitution, eh?'

'That's the general impression. But not just prostitution.'

'Slavery.' He spat it, like a bad taste in his mouth.

'That's the nice name. Two of the victims turned up recently. One was found in the gutter of a Mexican border town, across the Rio Grande from Texas. She was dead from a heroin overdose. The other took the quick way down from the top of a posh resort hotel near Acapulco.'

'Canada to Mexico,' Bolan muttered.

'For those two, yes.'

'Sending prostitutes to Mexico,' he commented heavily, 'is like carrying coals to Newcastle.'

'Toronto thinks that Mexico is just one stop on an international circuit. Big time. Jet set party girls, sort of. This idea is based mostly on the missing girls themselves. They're not just pretty girls, Mack. They're spectacular girls, without exception.'

'Will it never end?' Bolan growled.

'Name of the game, friend,' Toby replied soberly. 'Sex for sale is damned big business, or hadn't you heard?'

'For sale or trade,' he reminded her. 'Some guys will sell their souls to hell for a free peek into that cosmic sprawl.'

'What?'

'Pet theory of mine regarding the basis of sex. Forget it. What about Georgette now?'

'Well, back to Toronto. They decided that the victims were either kidnapped or lured with false promises. Which means, then, that most of the girls will have to be broken. You know the routine.'

Yes, Bolan knew the routine. Terror, repeated rape, degradation, shame, drugs — and, if nothing else worked, the threat of 'dirty pictures' being sent-home to families and friends.

Toby was continuing the report. 'Georgette has this friend in Toronto who is someone big with the police establishment. I don't know the whole story, but I do know that the contact was made through our office in Washington. She got a release from Washington and volunteered to help Toronto with the usual undercover gig. Georgie's a real phantom at that stuff, as you should know.'

Yes, Bolan knew. 'This was when?'

'About six weeks ago. She took a job at one of the suspect places, go-go girl. Had one meeting with her contact man a few days after she started. She reported at that time that she had been introduced to Tony Quaso, but not by that name. He was posing as a talent agent from New York, but she recognized him immediately. As the story went, he was supposed to return the next night with another agent, to catch her routine. Toronto had her under constant surveillance. They had her room bugged, two of their men had jobs in that club. But Georgette vanished a few hours after that report to her contact. Hasn't been seen or heard from since.'

'Six weeks,' Bolan growled.

Toby tossed her head and said, 'I gave her a couple of weeks to surface. Then I asked the home office to put me on the case. They didn't say no. They said hell no. So ... I hadn't had a real vacation for two years. I had leave coming and I took it.'

Bolan sighed. Half of his breakfast remained untouched and forgotten. He lit a cigarette and glared at the wall. Finally he said, 'So you cultivated Tony Quaso.'

She nodded her head and made a wry face. 'I figured that would be the most direct approach.'

'So what did you learn?'

'Not much, I guess. But I was getting there, until tonight. And I did get at least a sniff of Georgette's trail. I believe they found out about her federal connection.'

'What made you think that?'

'Personal experience I had. I walked into Quaso's joint out here on Six Mile Road and asked for a job. The manager auditioned me and hired me on the spot. I was billed as Linda Lakemont but I was on the payroll as Linda Walters. Three nights after I started, Quaso himself came in during the last act and issued a royal summons for me to join him at his table. One of the bartenders brought the drinks, in a joint that has a cocktail waitress for every three tables. That put my teeth on edge, and I was scared to death to drink it, but I did. Then the same bartender came back for the empties. He used the old two finger trick when he picked up my glass. You know, two pinkies inside to preserve the fingerprints outside.'

'You think they ran a make on you?'

'I know they did. Soon as I got away from there I beat it to a Washington hotline and passed the word to my buddy in the fingerprint bureau. He punched my prints into the computer as Linda Williams, with a bust in Houston for indecent exposure and lewd performance in a public place. The very next day I got the tip from Washington that an official ID request had come in through regular police channels. It's no secret that the mob owns cops everywhere. Well, later when Quaso and I became pals, he just had to get cute and let me know that he knew about my sordid past. I pouted then, until he told me how he found out. He said they'd had some trouble a while back with 'a broad' who'd been playing games with them. Since then, they were taking pains to know who they were playing with.'

'He made no bones about his underworld connections?'

'He bragged about it,' Toby said. 'Shall I tell you how many times I had to sit through The Godfather?'

'He's not bragging now,' Bolan said quietly. 'So I loused up your direct connection. I'm sorry.'

'Don't be,' she said. 'I already had all I was going to get from Tony the Louse. I think that place out there on Grosse Pointe is holding some secrets, though.'

'Is that just instinct? Or do you have something solid?'

'About half and half. One night after Quaso and I had … gone to bed, he got a call from someone in Toronto. It was just monosyllables from our end, but I caught a word or two from Toronto. Something about a special shipment of meat, great stuff, that kind of talk. Quaso wrote something on a pad by the phone. Next morning the pad was clean, but I picked the impressions off the sheet below. It was just two groups of numerals. One was 1492 — fourteen ninety-two — the other was a time, 6:30. Now what does 1492 suggest to you?'

Bolan muttered, 'Columbus sailed the ocean blue.'

'Right. And the Sons of Columbus have themselves a dandy little yacht club smack on the Canadian border.'

'Okay, it could mean something.'

'Sure, it could.'

He sighed. 'You need help, Toby.'

'Is that an offer?'