He pointed to the fire escape, hovering just above their heads. "My private entrance," he told her.
"Are we... breaking in?"
"No. My humble pad is up there. Top floor."
She groaned and rolled her eyes and told him, "Okay. If you can, I can."
Bolan chuckled and made a leap for the raised platform. The hinges creaked a little but the contraption came down with his weight, and he ushered the girl aboard with a flourish.
His window was open exactly two inches, the shade drawn to an inch above that — precisely the way he had left it. Still... Bolan had not survived this long on sloppy security.
He moved his lips to Mary's ear and whispered, "Stay!" Then he quickly raised the window and slid inside.
She was becoming worried and fidgety when finally the lights came on inside. A moment later Bolan's smiling face appeared at the window and he said, "Okay."
He helped her in, then lowered the window and shuttered it.
The girl was looking around, wrinkling her nose as only a scrutable Chinese doll can do it.
He said, "Well if is not sable and satin, I'll agree."
Mary was still having trouble with her breathing. She said, "No... I was just wondering if you always come home so carefully."
He shrugged and showed her a grin. "Just another small sacrifice of warfare," he said lightly. "Uh... kitchen's that way. Why don't you brew us some coffee? I have a phone call to make."
She said, "You actually set up housekeeping here?"
"It's safer this way."
She replied, "I guess it is," and went on to the kitchen.
Bolan dropped onto a threadbare couch that groaned under his weight. He lit a cigarette and allowed the smoke to surge around inside for a moment, then he coughed and reached for the telephone.
It was a long-distance, operator-assisted call to a number on the far side of the country.
The timing, he figured, would be just about perfect.
He got the connection on the third ring and the operator was announcing, "San Francisco calling Mr. Frank LaMancha."
The responding voice was gruff and seemingly unimpressed with a call from the Golden Gate. "You got the wrong number, honey," it reported. "There's no LaMancha here."
The operator went through the formality of verifying the number. The man assured her that indeed she had gotten the number she'd dialed, but he still didn't know anybody named LaMancha.
Bolan heard the decisive click of that instrument nearly three thousand miles away. His own voice had never entered the connection. The operator told him, "I'm sorry, sir. Would you like to refer to Pittsfield information?"
He replied, "Thanks, I'll check my own book."
He hung up and studied his watch. It was 5:30. It would be 8:30 in Pittsfield. He looked up to find the China doll studying him from the kitchen doorway.
"Your kitchen is a mess," she told him.
"Find the coffee okay?"
She nodded her head. "Make your call?"
He said, "No good. Try again in five minutes please."
She smiled. "Thank you, Mack."
"For what?"
"For bringing me here. For... trusting me. I know what it must be costing you — in your own peace of mind."
He grinned and told her, "That's one of war's nicer sacrifices."
"I guess I always pictured... men like you... as living high on the hog. You know. Luxury hotel suites, flashy broads lying all around hot and naked, gourmet food and vintage wines, all that..."
Bolan shook his head. "That's the enemy you're thinking of."
She said, "Well does this crash pad come equipped with a John?"
He smiled. "Off the bedroom, and watch out for the roaches."
She made a face at him and disappeared.
Bolan smoked and watched the time tick by. At 5:35 he again picked up the phone, but this time he poked out a direct-dial to a public telephone which was located several Pittsfield city blocks from the home of Leopold Turrin, a caporegime in Bolan's home town, scene of the original conflagration point of this impossible damned war.
One of the nicer surprises of the Pittsfield battle was the last-second revelation that Leo Turrin was an undercover cop.
It was friends like Leo that made the war a bit less impossible... but just a bit less.
They had worked out the telephone routine for contacts which would not jeopardize the security of either.
Bolan got his response this time on the first ring.
A hell of a comforting sound said, "Yeah, hello."
Bolan said, "Avon calling."
"Well at least you didn't drag me out in the middle of the night this time. Hey... paisano... get the hell out of that Goddamned town."
"Can't. Not yet. The irons are hot."
"That's not all that's hot. The wires are burning from coast to coast, and they're all screaming one thing. Death to Bolan. You picked a bummer this time, buddy."
"They're all bummers. The word is already out back there, eh."
"Hell, hours ago."
"The mob's telegraph gets better all the time."
"The first word didn't come from that side of the street."
"No?"
"No is right. The fuzz wires were burning minutes after your hit. Well, maybe an hour after. Ever hear of a James Matchison. Captain James Matchison?"
"No. Should I?"
"You should, and I'm betting you will. He heads up a specialty outfit in the soggy city, geared for open warfare and committed to the salvation of San Francisco. It's called the Brushfire Squad, and they've elected you their next triumphal achievement. They're not going to give you the keys to the city, Sarge."
"I don't want the keys, just the garbage franchise."
"They're going to bury you in their garbage, friend."
"Did Matchison tell you that personally?"
"He did."
"They actually contacted you?"
"Via the usual routine, yeah. I'm the quote foremost living authority unquote on Mack the Bastard. The guy wants your blood, Sarge. I could smell his taste-buds at three thousand miles. Take my advice and get out."
"What did you tell him?"
"The usual honest truth, what else."
"Okay, I'll take a helping of that, too. Give me a rundown on Daddy DeMarco. What are his pet things here?"
"The usual stuff."
"Tell me something unusual."
Turrin sighed across the wire. "One of these days, my buddy, my fuse is going to get lit from both ends and I'm going to go up in a puff of police outrage and mob vengeance. Why can't you just say hi, how's the weather, how's your heart beating, and let it go at that."
Bolan said, "Okay. How's your heart beating, Leo?"
The cop/Mafioso chuckled and replied, "Same as ever. Uh, you're looking for a fresh handle, eh?"
"Yeah. The boys are starting to treat me with respect. Soon as I hit town, everything grinds to a halt."
"Yeah, well, that's per official directive from the commissioners. You're going to be getting that from now on."
"Well..."
"You might look at an outfit calling itself Baysavers, Incorporated."
"What are they saving?"
"The San Francisco Bay, among other things. Can you imagine the mob getting ecology conscious?"
Bolan said, "Sure. They've been fighting the overpopulation problem for years."
Turrin chuckled and said, "They're fighting industrial pollution now."
"Then there must be a buck in it somewhere," Bolan replied.
"There's the secret. There are plenty of bucks in it."
"Nothing's sacred, is it."
"Just omerta. Uh, you know about Thomas Vericci?"
"Tom the Broker."
"Yeah. He's an invisible director of Baysavers... and not always so invisible. The feds are poking into it, but they can't prove anything yet. Meanwhile several formerly profitable bay-area industries have been forced into receivership, and at least
two of them have wound up in Vericci's other pocket."
"Which side of the street does this intel come from?"
"The police side. We hear very little, really, from the west coast arms. We meaning the mob. They run their own cozy little shops out there, with as little contact with the national council as they can get away with."
"Yeah, so I've heard. Okay. It sounds pretty vague, but maybe I'll look at Baysavers."
"Do it easy. The words I get, Vericci got a bunch of kids conned into the act. Naider's Raiders types. They think they're saving the bay for the fishes. I guess they don't know about the sharks they're running with."
"I get the picture," Bolan said, "Speaking of pictures, what do you know about porno movies?"
The man in Pittsfield chuckled merrily. "Not as much as I'd like to know. Which end are you talking about?"
"What ends are there?"
"Well... you've got distributors and you've got exhibitors. Some of the boys have been active in both areas, from time to time."
"Who makes the movies?"
"Nowadays, just about everybody. They're legit in most places."
"This could be important, Leo. Do you know of any of the boys in this area who might be making these movies?"
"No, not offhand. I could look into it, but it would take awhile."
"I guess I don't have awhile."
"Okay. Anything else on your mind?"
"What can you tell me about the ChiComs?"
Turrin whistled softly. "Nothing."
"Nothing at all??"
"That's right. I keep hearing Red China rumors, but it all sounds pretty wild. I wouldn't even repeat such crap, not even to you."
"Okay. How about Mr. King?"
"Hell, you do jump around. What about Mr. King?"
"Who is he, really?"
"I wish I knew. So do ten thousand feds. Speaking of them, you're on their shit list, buddy. Especially after Haiti. The men up high are actually frothing at the mouth, I hear."
"Sorry if I embarrassed them," Bolan said drily. "But a hit is a hit."
"Well, they did have some bad moments. Haiti is an OAS member, you know. And with all the rumors floating around that you're actually being sponsored by everybody from the FBI to the CIA... well, it got pretty messy."
Bolan laughed out loud.
"Don't laugh," Turrin said. "Even some of the congressmen are starting to wonder if you're sponsored. The feds are going to have to burn you, buddy, just to prove the rumors wrong."
"About Mr. King," Bolan prompted, changing the subject.
"Hell I told you, I don't know. I guess there aren't more than two or three men in the whole country who know his true identity. The name has been falling out of tapped telephones for years, and everybody generally agrees that he pulls the strings all over the western states... but hell that's it, Sarge. There just simply isn't any make on the guy. And he's not Mafia, he's bigger than that."
"I hear that Don DeMarco is his pipeline into the mob. I hear that's what made DeMarco, and that's what's keeping him made."
There was a long pause, then Turrin replied, "You've got better ears than mine, then. I never heard anything like that."
"Okay. Thanks a bunch, Leo."
"You, uh, don't want to know about anybody else?"
"You know I do." Bolan's voice went softly serious. "How are they?"
The reference was to Bolan's sole surviving relative — the kid brother, Johnny. And to Valentina Querente, Bolan's warmest love, the schoolteacher who'd taken over the care and feeding of young John.
"They're fine," Turrin reported. "The kid keeps a scrapbook on you. He's going to be wanting to join you some day, Sarge... if you should live so long. I mean... he wants a piece of your war. If you're still around by then."
"Don't worry," Bolan said tightly. "I won't be. Their security still okay?"
"Yeah. First class. Uh, Val keeps agitating for a meet. She's, uh..."
"Tell Val I'm dead, Leo. Tell her to find herself a nice, clean history teacher or something and settle down to the good life."
"I've told her a hundred times, Sarge."
"Well keep telling her. She's an old maid already. Tell her I said that."
"Okay, but it won't do any good. She's a Rock of Gibraltar, you know that."
It's just a matter of time anyway," Bolan muttered.
"Yeah. She knows that. And she's prepared for it. But she does want to see you, Sarge. One last time, she says. One hour, she wants one hour."
"I don't have one," Bolan said miserably.
"I know, I know."
"Leo. Thanks. You're a..."
"Yeah, yeah, shut up."
"So long."
"So long, dead man. Call me any time you can."
"I win."
Bolan hung up and lit another cigarette. He stared at the telephone for a moment, then he sighed and went looking for the China doll.
The coffee was boiling over on the stove. He took it off.
She wasn't in the bedroom.
The bathroom was empty.
Mary Ching was not there.
The China doll had taken a powder.
6
Point of Crisis
So, she'd taken off.
So, what the hell, it was her right. She owed Mack Bolan nothing, he owed her nothing, and the quiet disappearance did not necessarily classify her as one of the enemy.
Of course, though, it could.
A whole host of threatening possibilities were standing there at the edge of Bolan's mind... Mary Ching could very well turn into the greatest threat San Francisco had to offer him.
The only thing that he was certain of was that she had left of her own will. She had not been dragged out of there. She had simply released the safety chain, opened the door, and walked away. All the signs attested to that.
But... had she left there as friend or enemy?
Either way, there was no good reason why he should continue his residency of that Russian Hill apartment. It had served all his purposes, and now it had quite suddenly become more of an ominous liability than an asset.
And, as suddenly, Bolan was very tired. It was a weariness not of the flesh, but of the inner man — and the inner man had just about had it.
It was that special brand of weariness often known by a man who is called upon to stand too tall, for too long a time, and too utterly alone.
If there had just been someone else — anyone else — to whom he could say, "Okay, that's it I've had it for now. You take over for awhile."
There was no one like that.
There was no hole deep enough to hide him for more than a brief moment, no sanctuary to embrace him in safety from the largest manhunt in history — there was no God damned place to go, except out to fight.
And Bolan was sick of the sight and smell of blood.
He was wearied with worrying about all the incidental non-combatants who straggled across his battlefield.
And he was fed up with looking at every other human being as a potential jackal who might rip the flesh off of him.
He was tired of mistrust and suspicion — humbled by the reminder that he was just a man, after all — and thoroughly shaken by the idea that he had an entire city to conquer... and not just any city but this particular city.
So... what the hell. It was just another jungle, after all, San Francisco was.
The same rules applied in every jungle.
Kill that enemy son of a bitch, kill him now before he has a chance to do it to you.
Bolan's stomach rolled, and he instinctively understood what was happening to him. It was one of those defense mechanisms of the soul, one of those alert little angels of the inner being that kept sounding the alarms whenever the animal in there became too large, too strong, and too difficult to handle.
It had happened before.
It would happen again... if he lived that long.
It was a point of crisis, he understood that, a crisis of the inner man. But it
wasn't a matter of fear or cowardice; it was simply a deep, deep revulsion of what he was doing, of what he had become.
Puke it up, then. Puke it out of your system, Bolan, and then get back out there and fight.
He'd done it in Korea. He'd done it several times in Vietnam. And he'd been doing it quite regularly ever since Vietnam.
Okay. The enemy had not defeated him yet. The righteous wrath of the law had not defeated him yet. He was damned if he was going to defeat himself.
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together.
That line from T.S. Eliot flashed across Bolan's struggling consciousness, and he knew immediately that his inner man had not yet given up the fight.
Call it a subliminal awareness, or call it the computer-like ability of the human brain to reason effectively, or call it that inner angel — Bolan didn't give a damn what anyone called it.
It had provided his answer, and at a time when he needed one the most. And it was not just an answer to himself. It was an answer, also, to the enemy.
Bolan was not leaning together with anyone.
He stood alone — and, of course, that was the only way to fight his kind of war.
The enemy, though — the enemy were the hollow men, the stuffed men, leaning together.
He would, by God, see how well they could stand alone.
* * *
The warwagon had been stowed away under tight security in a rented garage a block away, and it was here that Bolan had gone without further dalliance.
The little Ford Econoline van was outfitted with everything required to wage war. It was, in fact, a rolling arsenal. Bolan was not only a highly trained warrior — he was also a master gunsmith and a munitions expert. He could build weapons, modify them, refine them, and improvise a variety of deadly combinations — and he knew how to put all of them to their best use.
Bolan was, in the literal sense, a one man army. He alone was the strategist, the tactician, the logistician; he was G-2, scout, recon patrol, armorer, medic and warrior.
And it was time to get this war in gear.
Bolan's nights had gone into a surveillance of the China Gardens. But his days had mostly been spent on the roof of the "drop" — in excellent binocular command of the DeMarco mansion. He had watched doors, windows and grounds. He had timed arrivals and departures of visitors and of tradesmen; he had made careful notes of the placements and routines of the palace guard; and he had sketched layouts of the probable floor plans for all three levels of the joint. He knew where and when DeMarco slept; he knew where he ate, and a couple of times he had even known what.
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