I've seen some bodies he's ordered extinct. Hardly qualify as human afterward.' He gobbled down the last bite of doughnut.
'Well, the Swingsaw's hit him three times so far. Managed to get away each time without a scratch.'
'Just a matter of time, Gus. Time and manpower, and Demoines has got plenty of both.'
'That's true. Only this Swingsaw bunch seems to know its way around these Mob types. Kinda like that Mack Bolan fella used to.'
At the mention of his name Bolan looked up, startled. He listened to the conversation for a moment, then settled back into his seat, unconcerned. The Executioner was a master of role camouflage. It had worked for him in Nam many times, dressed as a peasant in a paddy, while the enemy walked by a few feet away, none the wiser. But sometimes no disguise is the best. The brain doesn't register what the eyes see. Now, as Bolan listened to the good-natured bantering in the front seat, he realized this was one of those times.
'Hell, that guy was nuts, man. Taking on cops and the Mob.'
'Maybe,' Gus said. 'And you know I don't condone no vigilante behavior. Only this Bolan, he was different. Seemed to know the difference between the law and justice. Wasn't afraid to do something about it, neither.'
'Don't matter. He was then and this is now, Gus.'
'Could be this Savannah Swingsaw is Mack Bolan. Same MO. And word's gotten around he ain't dead at all, like they was saying before.'
Bolan rapped his handcuffs against the screen.
'Hey, just where is this Demoines guy located?'
'What's it to you?' Deke asked.
'Might want to look him up when I get out. Guy with that kind of dough might be looking for a few good men. If the price is right.'
Deke snorted.
'He may not be around when you get out of jail, Blue. If you get out alive, that is.'
5
'You know those prison movies where the new fish comes in and his cellmate is this muscle-bound asshole that tells him to take the top bunk or else get his head busted?'
Bolan nodded. 'Yeah.'
The muscular black man in the wheelchair looked at Bolan menacingly. 'Well, you got the top bunk, new fish.'
Bolan didn't move. 'What if I'm afraid of heights?'
The man rolled his wheelchair to within three inches of Bolan's feet.
'How do you feel about a shank in your gut?'
Bolan aimed up to the top bunk, bounced on the thin mattress. 'Hmm, not as high as I'd thought.'
The black man in the wheelchair grinned.
'Well, well, fish. You're a lot smarter than most guys in here. One look at me in this chair and they figure they can take me. All they got to do is maybe tip over my chair or run around behind me. Some tried.' He chuckled in a gruff rumble.
Bolan jumped down from the bunk, carrying his toothbrush to the sink. The black man whirled his chair around faster than Bolan thought was possible in the small cell. He was in his late thirties, but his arms were huge globes of muscles with thick veins crisscrossing his forearms like underground cables.
His chest was equally as developed, slabs of dark stone straining at the cotton prison shirt.
Only the legs looked out of place, shriveled stems flopping limply from side to side as he moved the chair.
'My life story isn't any of your business, chump, so don't ask,' he snapped, catching Bolan's stare.
'Right,' Bolan said. He didn't have to ask.
He'd seen men like that before. And there was a look in the man's eyes, the kind of hidden pain recognizable only by someone who'd shared at least a glimmer of that pain. Bolan splashed some cold water on his eyes and turned to face the man in the wheelchair.
'Nam?'
The black frowned with surprise, nodding slowly.
'When?' Bolan asked.
'Sixty-six, near Saigon. We bulldozed some rubber plantations near the Cambodian border.'
Bolan nodded. 'Operation Cedar Falls.'
'Yeah, that's right. You there?'
Bolan hesitated. He heard a hopeful note in the man's voice, but being in Nam wasn't part of the biographical file he and Brognola had created for Damon Blue. If there was going to be any chance at all of this, mission succeeding, he'd have to stick to the script. 'Nah, I wasn't there. My brother had a friend. He yapped about it all the time.'
'Sure,' the man in the wheelchair said bitterly. 'Everybody had a friend. Shit.' He spun his chair around and wheeled forward to the bars. 'Just stay outta my face, Blue.'
'Fair enough. Only what's your name? I like to know whose face I'm staying out of.'
The big man in the wheelchair kept his back to Bolan, his dead knees pressed against the bars. He didn't bother answering.
'Lyle Carrew,' Gordon Schultz said.
He blew his nose into his napkin, then peeked into the napkin before crumpling it and tossing it onto his lunch tray. 'That's his name. Shame about him being crippled and all.'
Bolan shrugged, spooned more tomato soup into his mouth. The food wasn't too bad, no worse than most hospitals, but there wasn't enough of it. He'd finished his Salisbury steak and beet salad and had given Gordon Schultz two cigarettes for his soup and half a pack of crackers. The information came free.
Schultz stashed the smokes in his shirt pocket.
'Cripple or not,' he went on, 'the guy can handle himself. Saw him bust the arm of Billy Fieldstone last week. Young Billy's from down Folkston way, that's Okefenokee Swamp land, and he's got a bit of the KKK in his blood. Figured Carrew was an easy target. Learned different real fast.'
'What's he in for?'
'Lyle?' Schultz smiled. 'He's 'waitin' trial like us. Only he ain't as smart. At least you and me was just practicin' our trade, tryin' to make a buck. You holdin' up the liquor store, me a bank. But Lyle there...' Schultz chuckled '...he was just havin' fun. Tore up a whole wing of the V.A. hospital. Dumped files, beat up a doctor, scared the hell outta the nurses. Tossed a desk and a coupla TV'S from the eighth-floor window. Took four cops to cuff him. Not bad for a guy in a wheelchair.'
Bolan stopped in midsip and looked across the room to where Lyle was eating at a table by himself.
'Has a temper, huh?'
'Damn straight. And that ain't the first time he tore that joint up. Last time he got thirty days. This time, I dunno. If he opens his smartass mouth to the judge....' Schultz shook his head to indicate it would be plenty of time. 'They usually keep guys in wheelchairs in the infirmary, but Lyle put up such a fuss, you know, discrimination against the handicapped, that kinda crap, they stuck him in here with the rest of us. Some victory, huh?'
Bolan shrugged. 'That's his problem, not mine. He's just my cellmate.' He pointed his spoon at a table across the isle where Dodge Reed sat hunched over his ice tea looking frightened. He seemed even younger than in the photograph Hal Brognola had shown him. 'What's the kid doing here? Mess up on some fraternity prank?'
'Him? That's, uh, Reed. Got some stupid first name, what is it? Chevy or Ford. Somethin' like that.' Schultz laughed. 'We got him coupla days ago from the downtown jail. Some kind of embezzlin' from a record store. Kid stuff. Well, he's going to do some growin' up real soon.'
Bolan kept his voice bored, indifferent.
'Whaddya mean?'
