"It sounds straight, sir," the torpedo called Oscar replied.
"Sounds like Bolan to me," said the other.
Something highly discomfiting was finally coming together in Joey Puli's mind. One knee buckled under that onslaught of revelation and he nearly toppled over. "Oh God!" he moaned. "Was that—was that ... ?"
"You saying you didn't know?"
"I swear I didn't know," Puli weakly insisted. "I didn't finger you, Mr. Oliveras. The guy did, he already knew. He says, 'Pick that up and deliver it to Oliveras.' You just gotta believe that. I didn't even know who the guy was. He just says—"
"Shut up!"
"Yessir." Puli steeled himself for another blow from the rear, but none came. He stood with shoulders slumped, staring at his toes in abject contrition.
From the desk: "Oscar."
"Yes, sir."
"You better check this out. Not direct. Call the guy over at HPD. Tell him to verify this. I want to know damn quick."
The guy moved to a telephone somewhere to the rear.
"Charley."
"Sir."
"Put this kid on ice until we know what's going on here."
The escorting torpedo grabbed Puli's arm and spun him around, moving him out. Oscar was standing at a small table near the window, speaking into a telephone. From the corner of his eye Puli saw a huge bulk of a man moving away from the desk in the corner.
Then all hell broke loose.
The big picture window at the north wall popped and vibrated as something sizzled into that room and exploded into the face of Puli's escort, jerking the guy like a rag doll and sending pieces of him spraying everywhere. The window popped again before the little runner could fully comprehend what had occurred, and with that one the guy at the telephone was flung across the room in another shower of blood.
Puli instinctively hit the floor and hugged it as the window continued to erupt and a seemingly eternal fusillade of heavy bullets demolished everything within reach.
Some other guys came charging in, only to be screamed back by Oliveras who—Puli noted—was also as flat on the floor as his huge girth would allow.
And when it was over, the silence was even more ominous than the preceding chaos. Two men lay gruesomely dead almost at Joey Pull's outstretched fingertips. The entire room was a wreck. Puli was aware that his fingers were stiff and aching, and that he had wet himself.
Then, behind him, the quivering rasp of Frank Oliveras' voice sounded off with a seemingly endless stream of solemn obscenities.
That desk back there was splintered beyond belief. It was a miracle that Oliveras was alive to cuss about it.
And another miracle was quickly borne in on Joey Puli's trembling awareness—he, Joey Puli, was a very, very lucky man. He had lived through two hits by the most fearsome son of a bitch in Puli's dark world.
The Executioner had come to Hawaii.
And the bastard was on the rampage.
2: Moving Up
The evening was just beginning to swing at the Oahu Cove, a gaudy supper club which was operated in conjunction with the apartment complex owned by Frank Oliveras. Headlining the entertainment at the club for "the third, big week" was the man who'd become accustomed to being billed as "the hottest comic in the land," Tommy Anders. It was the first time since Vegas that these two trails had crossed, and Bolan had mixed feelings about this occasion. It was nice to see old friends, sure—but friends had, an uncomfortable facility for becoming liabilities to a one-man army; Bolan had learned to shun personal contacts whenever possible. This one seemed necessary, however.
He had changed into casual evening wear and was seated at a back table at Oahu Cove as the comic concluded his first show of the night. Anders was a satirist and had come a long way poking fun at the nation's ethnic sensitivities. He hadn't changed a bit since Vegas.
"I'm not no ethnician—I'm just a lost wop without a Godfather—but I gotta say it, these people here in Five-Oh state are beating the devil with his own stick. It's a majority of minorities here, and I don't believe these people even know the difference anymore.
They've got a lap in the state house, a Chinaman in Congress, and a Polynesian in their supreme court. How ridiculous can you get? They're men! Every one of them. Chauvinist minority pigs! Why the hell don't they send some hula girls to Congress? A little grass shack up on Capitol Hill—what's wrong with that? I'm telling you—I'm not no ethnician, but . . . Prostitution used to be legal, back when this state was a territory. That came in somewhere between the missionaries and the Honolulu Hilton—back during those great old days of WASP rule, remember Pearl Harbor, and Mamie Stover. Now that they got home rule with a majority of minorities running things, the only lay a guy can get on this island is the one they hang around your neck when you arrive. Everything's illegal now. You can't even pee on the beach without getting fined. Pers'nally I don't care. Like I say, I'm not no ethnician—and all this law and order sets things up perfectly for my people. I don't care who they put in politics in this country as long as everybody understands that it's the Italians who are really running things. This is Tommy Anders, also known in dark alleys as Guiseppe Androsepitone, proudly saying good night and may the Godfather smile on you all."
The little guy left the stage with a good hand, then reappeared for a brief bow as the curtain raised behind him and a troop of westernized hula dancers took over.
A few minutes later he was sliding onto the chair opposite Bolan, his eyes dancing with restrained excitement and his breath coming hard. "God Jesus, it is you," he exclaimed in a muffled voice. "What the hell are you doing on this island!"
Bolan grinned and took the comic's hand in a warm grasp. "Same as you, I'd guess," he replied, assuming more than he actually knew. It seemed a pretty safe bet, though, that Anders had been involved in a federal undercover operation while at Las Vegas. "Which way are the hounds running?"
Anders chuckled as he signaled the waiter. "In circles, right now, I'd say. The word is sweeping the island like the big waves up at Makaha. I figured it was just a wild rumor but . . . well, here you are, right?"
The waiter was waiting. Bolan covered his glass with the palm of his hand and shook his head in response to the lifted eyebrows of his friend. Anders ordered a drink. The waiter departed. The little guy picked it up again right on the beat. "I got your envelope back stage just now and I thought, God Jesus, it's true, the goddam guy is really here and storming. Man, you do, love suicide details, don't you. How do you figure to, get off this damn island?" "Maybe I won't need to," Bolan said, smiling. He lit a cigarette while Anders stared at him, waiting for more than that.
"That's a hell of an attitude," Anders replied presently. "I thought you always had these things so damn well planned."
"Just the openers, Anders. The end can take care of itself. What do you have going here?"
"Third and last big week," the comic said, smiling sourly.
"Baloney."
The guy laughed out loud. "Okay. I guess I owe you honesty, at the very least. Right now you're seated in company property."
Bolan said, "I know. I just hit upstairs a little while ago."
The comic's face went blank. "You did what?"
"I gave Oliveras a little sneak preview of things to come."
"When was this?"
Bolan glanced at his watch. "Little less than an hour ago."
Anders rolled his eyes at that. He glanced nervously about them as he said, "So that's what all the flap was about. I didn't connect it with the other rumors—mainly because I just couldn't see you committing yourself to this small arena. Well . . . after Vegas, I guess nothing should surprise me where you're concerned. But you'd better get on your bicycle and pedal the hell away from this joint, right quick. This whole damn place is an armed camp. I could point out to you ten very unfriendly torpedoes without leaving this table. And they—"
"I have them spotted," Bolan said quietly.
The comic's eyes warmed and a smile worked
at his lips. "I'll bet you do, at that. Tell me something else, phantom. How come they never have you spotted?"
Bolan chuckled dryly. "Dead men do not draw pictures. The others are working at role images. You should know all about that game. But I don't play it their way."
Anders was giving the big man a searching gaze. "Yeah," he said. "Who'd you hit?"
"Couple of Ollie's boys. Right now I don't want the man himself. The trail ends at him. I need the next connection, the next man high. You know who that might be?"
Anders shook his head. "You hear rumours all the time, but they're not worth a damn. The only word I can believe says that Oliveras himself is the top card."
Bolan said, "It doesn't fit. Too many outrankers coming in. It's been a regular tourist flow the past few months. Rodani from Detroit. Topacetti from Chicago. Bonvenuti from St. Louis and Pensa from Cleveland. New York has sent Dominick and Flora—Boston, Tommy Odono. That's too much firepower for a guy like Oliveras to crew. He's a junk runner, period. Something bigger than junk is brewing on these islands. What is it?"
The comic shook his head with a doleful grimace. "Nobody knows."
"That's why you're here?"
"One reason, yeah."
"What's the other?"
"You remember those Ranger Girls."
Bolan flinched. Sure, he remembered. How could he forget? "I saw Toby in Detroit a while back," he replied.
"I hear you saw Georgette, also," Anders said quietly.
Sure. Bolan had given the Canuck body bomb a merciful death. "I did," he said.
The comic was staring into his drink. "This is a high-risk business," he muttered. "We all know that. We accept it as a fringe benefit when we take the job."
Bolan said, "Yeah."
"Smiley accepted that, too."
Smiley Dublin, sure—the beautiful kid who, even in Vegas, seemed to have lost all her smiles long ago. "What are you saying?" Bolan growled.
Anders sighed. "We're looking for her."
"I see. And the trail gets cold right here."
"Yeah. It ended here four weeks ago."
Bolan closed his eyes, very tightly, fighting back a surge of emotion. He was trying to call up a vision of a divine body, saucy head and elfin face, a lovely kid with talent enough to storm the world but also possessing guts enough to tackle its nether regions. And all he could summon up was a pitiful wreck of a human being who pleaded only for death's release from a back porch of hell in Detroit one terribly dismal night.
"What'd you say?" Anders asked.
Bolan had not been aware that he'd said anything. But the moment passed as he replied, "I said that's too long."
"Maybe not. I keep hearing whispers."
"Like what?"
"You hear of a Chinese guy called Chung?"
Bolan nodded. "Local muscle."
"Right, with full franchise to flex it whenever and wherever. Has a place over on the big island, secret place. The whispers say that Chung keeps political prisoners over there."
"For what purpose?" Bolan wondered aloud. Anders shrugged. "Maybe for fun and games, maybe for something else."
"How many are working this with you?"
"Right now, just me," Anders replied, sighing. "The local authorities are clued in, but only at the very highest levels. We're afraid to show a hand at this stage of things."
"You want me to butt out?" Bolan asked quietly.
"No. You're here, you may as well wade right in. The water's warm already. Bring it to a boil. Maybe something good will float to the top."
"Okay." Bolan placed money on the table and got to his feet.
"Where're you headed?" Anders inquired, tight-lipped.
"Upstairs."
The comic sighed. "I know better than to say anything about that. But you're crazy, you know. Maybe you got in there once, but you'll never do it twice in the same night."
Bolan smiled and again shook hands. "Great to see you again, Anders. I'll be in touch."
"Sure."
"If you have any silent friends in the woodwork, now's the time to tell me."
"I told you, there's no one."
Bolan smiled again and went out.
He took a small arcade to the main lobby and approached the security desk, scowling. A uniformed guard greeted him pleasantly enough, but the guy was obviously edgy.
Bolan allowed his shoulder harness to show briefly as he opened his coat to produce an official badge wallet which he flashed at the guy and immediately returned to his pocket. "Fourteenth floor," he said brusquely. "Disturbance report. Your people check it out?"
"Well, sure," the guard replied, his smile still hanging in there. "I called in the okay on that nearly an hour ago." He snorted as he explained, "Damn flock of birds flew right against a window up there."
"I'll have to check it out," Bolan insisted. He snared the building register and signed in.
The guard was protesting, "Well, wait, I better call . . ." as Bolan moved on to the elevators.
The guy had the phone to his ear as Bolan stepped into the car and punched off. There would be a reception awaiting him up there, sure. He sprung the Beretta and threaded the silencer aboard, then closed his left 'fist around a spare clip and waited for that door to slide open.
He was going in cold, with only the haziest idea concerning the lay of that hellground up there, and less than an hour after a hard-punch bit on the same joint.
A hellground in the sky, sure—that's what it would be.
So what was new? There was nothing new between life and death, not for a guy like Mack Bolan.
All corners of hell smelled the same.
3: Blitzing
Four men were waiting for him in the small lobby at the fourteenth floor, but they obviously were not prepared for a blitz-in. It was a "cop set" of studied looseness—one guy idly shuffling papers at a tiny desk near the elevator, another seated casually in an overstuffed chair along the wall, a matched pair lounging against a door at the far end, above which was mounted a closed-circuit television camera.
Hardsite security, sure. But not hard enough.
Bolan exploded into the lobby with the Beretta singing, the first round finding headbone at the desk and sending the paper shuffler toppling backward, round two arching wall ward and punching the lounger into a sideways dive, chair and all.
The lightning one-two caught the whole set with reflexes frozen or dead. Rounds three and four spat across that small lobby to nail the two guys at the door before stunned nerves could react. The fifth round shattered the television camera and the rest of the clip tore the locking mechanism out of the door to the inner sanctum.
Bolan was ejecting the spent clip and clicking in the replacement as he moved swiftly into the "cool room" where earlier Joey Puli had awaited his audience with the boss of Oahu. Only a few heartbeats had elapsed since the man from death erupted from that elevator. He was moving on tight, blitzing numbers which would make utter failure of the slightest hesitancy. There was therefore no lost motion as he entered the security cubicle and instantly read the situation there.
The inner door was of the heavy, security-interlock type—perhaps even electronically sealed. Bolan wasted no precious seconds on that door. Without breaking stride, he seized the wooden chair which had last accommodated Puli and heaved it into the mirrored wall. It kept right on going, taking a large area of the wall with it. Bolan dived into the wreckage, with no idea of what he was leaping into other than a flash impression of scrambling bodies in electric reaction.
The security cell was dimly lit, small, unfurnished except for a couple of stools and a control console. Three men were in there: one now lying on the floor and groaning in the wreckage, another backed against the wall and waving a gun, the other moving quickly toward a door.
The Beretta coughed in instant reaction to the most immediate challenge. The hardman at the wall died with eyes bugging and weapon firing reflexively into the ceiling. The guy at the door snapped off a wild sho
t as he disappeared into another room. The one on the floor was dazedly trying to find a path to his weapon when a Parabellum whanger opened his pathway to hell instead.
Bolan assimilated the security layout of that fourteenth floor suite with a quick glance at the electronic console. It was exactly as his intelligence probes had indicated: Oliveras was almost paranoid in his security precautions. Every door in the joint was interlocked through this master panel.
The blitz artist paused only long enough to energize the master unlock control before charging on through the doorway. He reached that point just as the third man was sprinting through an arched doorway at the far end of a larger room. The Beretta coughed in pursuit, her zinging little missile overtaking the prey and punching him forward in a face-down slide to nowhere.
The guy could have been headed for only one point. Bolan followed that trail to its logical end, a room at the outside wall protected by a massive door with ornate hardware.
The door was several inches ajar but swinging closed when Bolan got there. He hit it at full gallop and went right on through. A small guy at the opposite side was caught in the backswing; he was stumbling backwards, falling, a snubbed .38 in one paw discharging into the floor. A Parabellum sizzler exploded into the guy's face as Bolan ran over him and moved on into a large, lavishly decorated room.
It was a bedroom, and more, sporting a circular bed outfitted with a variety of kinky devices. There was also a bar, a sunken bath, a small gym in one corner, an efficiency kitchen, a miscellany of overstuffed furniture. Oliveras evidently did most of his living here in this one room. But not at the moment.
Joey Puli was the only occupant of the room. He was tied to a chrome kitchen chair near the bed. His mouth was bleeding, his face puffy and discoloured. The little Hawaiian stared at the new arrival with haunted eyes and muttered, "Look at what you got me into."
Bolan growled, "Where's Oliveras?"
Those glazed eyes shifted to the far side of the room. "Hiding in the closet."
Indeed he was. Wearing silk pyjamas and holding a snifter of brandy as though it were a gun, dulled eyes flicking in search of some way out of the box, the Lord of Oahu greeted Judgment with a despairing groan.
Executioner 022 - Hawaiian Hellground Page 2
