Continental Contract

by Don Pendleton

  The Executioner stepped quickly to the front door and discharged a short burst into the air, wishing to discourage any rush from that direction but reluctant to spray indiscriminately into the street. Then he went to the other doorway and stepped into Madame Celeste’s private quarters.

  A well-dressed man sat there, on the floor, staring at him. He held a fancied-up luger in a bleeding hand. “Bolan,” he whispered.

  “That’s right.” Another man lay close by, face down in blood, breathing with a bubbly sound. “It seems to be down to you and me.”

  The luger fell away and the soft voice announced, “I surrender.”

  “That’s nice.” Bolan could not help being struck by the ludicrousness of the situation. In all his lifetime of warfare, he had never heard those words.

  “Look, I’m a businessman, not a street soldier.”

  “I guess you’re going to die like one.” Bolan went on into the room and placed the muzzle of the pistol against the man’s head. It was hot. Hide fried, but the terrified man did not move so much as an eyebrow.

  “Don’t kill me, Bolan. Deal, I’m a businessman, let’s deal.”

  “Okay, start dealing. But damn quick.”

  “You don’t want Paris. No action here, Bolan. The action is south, the Mediterranean—Marseilles, Nice, that’s the center of action. Evil action, Bolan, your kind of stuff. Narcotics, gun running, white slavery, all of it. That’s where you want to be. Not here, not in Paris.”

  “Who the hell are you?” Bolan asked, curious.

  “I’m Tom Rudolfi. You don’t know that name? I’m the Ambassador to France, Bolan.”

  “Sure,” Bolan said. “I haven’t heard any deal yet, Rudolfi. You have ten seconds, then I have to be splitting.”

  “Names, Bolan. I’m giving them to you. Aumond, de Champs, Silvaterri. The big three, Bolan. South. Go south.”

  Bolan said, “Yeah,” and slapped Rudolfi’s skull with the muzzle of the pistol. The man sagged forward. Bolan stared at him for an indecisive moment, made a face, and went out. A guy was coming in from the street, saw Bolan, and flung himself back outside. Bolan grimaced and threw a short burst that splintered the doorjamb, then he sprinted up the steps.

  He glanced at his watch as he ran through the chamber of death; the timing was great; hardly more than two minutes had elapsed since the first shot.

  Madam Celeste stood stiffly at the third floor landing. Bolan paused beside her and murmured, “Je regrette, Celeste, je beaucoup regrette.”

  The woman spit at him. Bolan went on to the roof. Only the blonde Englishwoman was there to greet him. She said, “I don’t believe it.”

  “I do,” Bolan replied, moving on across the rooftop.

  The woman was trotting along beside him. He asked her, “Where do you think you’re going?”

  She told him, “You don’t think I’m going back to that death house.”

  “Where’d the others go?”

  “I don’t know. They just … disappeared.”

  “You thinking of going with me then?”

  “Well … I don’t know where to go. The police …”

  “Yeah, there’s always that, isn’t there.” Bolan slowed his pace and steered the girl around the clothesline area. Back across the rooftop, a shadowy figure and then another moved through the lighted doorway atop Madame Celeste’s. The pursuit was on. Bolan took the girl’s arm and hurried her along. The weird sound of French sirens seemed to be homing in from all directions. They reached the steel ladder of the end building and he told her, “Quickly, down.”

  She said, “I-I don’t know if I …”

  The sounds of running feet were moving across the rooftop. Bolan heard a gurgle and a whoomp that could only mean a neck on a clothesline. Someone out there in the darkness was swearing softly and with great feeling.

  The girl’s hand was clutching his with a spasm of fear. He told her, “If you’re going with me, Judy, it’s now or never. The hounds are loose.”

  She threw her leg across the parapet and lowered herself over the side, eyes wide on Bolan. He followed quickly behind her.

  Thus far the mission had been a huge success. He had blitzed a Mafia hardsite and come away alive, with perhaps an item or two of useful intelligence and, for the first time ever, a soft bundle of spoils.

  Now, if he could just make it back across a narrow area of hostile territory, maybe after all there would be a moment or two of R&R in gay Paree. But the Executioner was not setting any plans along that line. The Executioner had learned to live one heartbeat at a time.

  9: The Paradox

  Bolan was standing at the window and watching the activity in the street. The blonde girl was seated on the bed, legs drawn up to her chest, head resting on the knees. Her breathing was almost normal again as she told Bolan, “This is like a nightmare.”

  “Then I guess I live in one,” he replied without turning around.

  “Why?”

  He shrugged his shoulders and kept his eyes on the street. “The French police are very efficient, aren’t they? They’ll be coming up here soon. I’ll have to ask you to strip. This will have to look very convincing.”

  “Yes, of course. But you didn’t answer my question. Why do you feel compelled to live this way?”

  The street was alive with police. It was sealed at each end, numerous vehicles choking the narrow thoroughfare just below Bolan, men moving energetically all about. Bolan was grateful for the potentially hazardous haven just above it all; he knew that he would have not made it two blocks from the scene, not through all that down there.

  He stepped away from the window and turned to the girl. She was removing the pajama blouse. He told her, “I don’t know any other way to live. It’s like fighting Charlie, I guess. No clear reason for keeping it going, yet no safe and sane way to break it off.”

  “You didn’t have to come back here,” she quietly argued. She dropped onto her back and extended her feet toward Bolan. “Pull, please.”

  He pulled the pajama pants away from her and solemnly surveyed the nakedness spread before him. “You’re lovely,” he told her.

  “Thank you.”

  He stepped away from the bed and removed his skinsuit, quickly folded it, and stowed it in the briefcase with the hardware, then locked the case and set it in the closet. When he turned back to the girl she was watching him with a calculating gaze.

  She threw back the bedcovers and told him, “You’re lovely too.”

  Bolan stood beside the bed and pulled her into his arms. “I warned you, we have to make it look convincing.”

  “No problem there,” she murmured, and pressed into an entirely convincing kiss. They went down together in the embrace. The girl got an arm loose and pulled the covers over them. She giggled something incoherent and wriggled against him.

  Bolan broke off and moved away. “Not that convincing,” he protested.

  “Then you’d better think of something to talk about,” she warned him.

  “Hell,” he said.

  “I suppose you’re wondering about me. That is, about my … activities.”

  “None of my business,” he assured her.

  “I’m a writer.”

  “Congratulations. Direct research, eh?”

  “Not exactly. Call it direct living. After years and years of schooling, I found that I had learned all the clever ways of saying things, but that I had nothing to be said.”

  “Yeah.” He took her hand off his hip and held it. This was certainly the most unlikely conversation of his unlikely life.

  “You don’t believe a word of it, do you?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Yes. I didn’t come to Paris for … for this. I mean … prostitution. I came to taste life.”

  “How’s the taste?”

  “Horrible. And, at the same time, wonderful. You should understand, though. In Paris, prostitution isn’t … well, it’s not all that … well, many girls in Paris supplement their incom
e in this manner. But it’s dangerous for amateurs … in many ways, only one of which is the police.”

  “And Celeste offered you protection.”

  “Yes. I’m a … an extra. Well dammit! Whether you approve of it or not, it’s the most logical way for a foreigner in Paris to keep from starving. At least this way I am free to come and go as I please. No one man is keeping me, I owe nothing to anyone.”

  Bolan smiled. “Hey, I’m no one to judge.”

  “Yes, that’s true, isn’t it.”

  He told her, “Some day you can write The Confessions of J, or something.”

  “Yes, and I’ll get filthy rich.”

  “Your name isn’t really Jones, is it?”

  “No.”

  His smile broadened. “Pen name, eh?”

  “No.” She giggled. “Bed name.”

  Bolan started to say something in the same light vein, then he checked himself and his eyes tracked to the door. He whispered, “Okay, this is it.”

  The girl had heard not a thing but moments later knuckles rapped lightly on the door and the voice of the hotel manager softly called, “Monsieur Martin?”

  Bolan counted to five, then gruffly replied, “Hey, dammit, do not disturb! Can’t you read your own damn signs?”

  “Excusez-moi, Monsieur. The police wish to enter.”

  “Goddammit, you told me this was a quiet hotel!”

  “M’sieur—s’il vous plait. The police—”

  Bolan yelled, “Go to hell!”

  A key turned in the lock, the door swung open, and Bolan raised belligerently to a seated position on the bed. The girl came up to an elbow and drew the covers about her shoulders. From the hallway the manager spluttered, “A thousand pardons, M’sieur Martin.”

  A plainclothes cop stepped cautiously into the room, then another. They gazed around, glanced skitteringly at the couple on the bed, then said something in rapid French to the manager. He advanced into the room and told Bolan, “There ’as been another shooting, M’sieur. The police desire to question you. They do not speak the English. I will translate.”

  Bolan growled, “You translate their asses right out of here! The American consul will hear about this, you bet on it!”

  One of the detectives had gone to the window. The other was standing rather uncomfortably at the foot of the bed, darting quick glances at the girl. The one at the window said, “Passeport, s’il vous plait.”

  “And what if I don’t please?” Bolan replied sulkily.

  “Passeport!”

  Bolan told the manager, “Inside coat pocket, in the—I’ll get it.” He threw back the covers and swung his feet to the floor.

  The detective quickly waved him back. “I speak English,” he told Bolan. “Never mind the passport. We regret this invasion of your privacy, Monsieur, Madame. Just a few questions, please, and we will leave you alone.”

  Bolan said, “Fair enough.”

  “You heard the shooting, of course.”

  “We heard something. Little while ago. By the time I got up to look, it was all over. We, uh, weren’t really interested … comprenez-vous?”

  The detective’s lips moved in a suggestion of a smile and he replied, “Yes, I understand. You saw nothing, then?”

  Bolan’s eyes flashed deliberately to the girl. “Inspector,” he said in a confidential tone, “I wouldn’t have seen King Kong if he’d been climbing in my window.”

  The corner had obviously been turned. Several routine questions followed, obviously of the breakaway variety, and the police made a graceful retreat.

  The door closed behind them and the girl let out her breath in a soft whoosh. “They did not speak directly to me once,” she whispered.

  “Homicide cops,” Bolan explained. “You have to understand the French. See no evil, know none, that’s the philosophy. They didn’t want to get sucked into a morals case. That’s why he didn’t look at my passport. He knew the manager already had. He would have been required to ask for yours, too, and he might have learned something he didn’t want to know about.”

  “Then you handled it beautifully,” she told him.

  “Thanks. There simply was no other way.”

  “You handle all things beautifully, don’t you?”

  “I try.”

  “How are you going to handle this?”

  “This what?”

  “Well … here we are, aren’t we?”

  Yes, there they were. Bolan took her in his arms and told her of that very special sanctuary found only in a woman’s embrace. She explained to him the very special difference between professional love and the spontaneous variety. Together they found that human bond that temporarily erases anxieties, placates mortal fears, and reaffirms the joys of being alive and young and together. And some time later, when their stories were fully told, she was lying languidly on the disarrayed bed and watching him with half-closed eyes as he quietly got into his clothes.

  “Yes, you handle things beautifully,” she murmured.

  He told her, “That isn’t hard when you’re handling beautiful things.”

  “Mack … don’t waste yourself on an insane war.”

  “It isn’t insane,” he replied. “You said something about tasting life, Judy. Listen … I don’t know about women … but a man hasn’t begun to live until he’s found something to die for.”

  “I … guess I understand that. And I think I’m … ready to try my novel again, Mack.”

  He smiled at her, his teeth gleaming in the subdued light. “I’m glad to hear that.” He went to the closet for the rest of his things.

  “It isn’t going to be The Confessions of J, either.”

  Bolan placed his gear at the door and went over to kneel at the bed. He kissed her lightly on the lips and said, “No?”

  “No. I think I shall call it No More To Die.”

  “What’s that mean?” he asked, smiling solemnly.

  “I don’t know, except that I’ve been dying for years, and for no good reason whatever. I suppose I’ll have to write the book to find out what it means.”

  He kissed her again and quickly stood up. “You’ll find out,” he said gruffly.

  “Do you realize how very profound you are, Mr. Bolan? You’ve found the mystical secret of paradoxical logic. You are truly alive, aren’t you?”

  He went to the door without replying, opened it, picked up his things, then said, “Au revoir, Judy.”

  “Don’t say that. Say a tout a l’heure—see you later.”

  “I hope so,” he said.

  “Me too,” she whispered.

  He went out and down the stairs and onto the street. It was shortly past two o’clock. All was quietly deserted out there now. He went up the street without challenge, got into his car, and headed for Champs d’Elysees.

  Sure, he was truly alive. A man who lives in the constant shadow of death is always very much aware of being alive. He knew nothing of paradoxical logic or the strange workings of psyche that led a refined English girl into French joie service, but he did know that he had made a possibly fatal mistake of weakness back at that house of death.

  He had left a survivor. He had humbled the guy and allowed him to beg for his life, then compounded the shame by walking away and leaving him alive. No man who was tough enough inside to survive in the world of Mafia could live for long with that kind of humiliation eating at him. The Rudolfi guy would have to vindicate his own aliveness now. He would have to answer to his own high priest of human pride and manliness, and the reply would undoubtedly be along the lines of what the English girl had termed paradoxical logic. Rudolfi would have to kill because he regarded himself as unfit to live. Of such questionable fodder were born the world’s holy wars. Bolan understood this. Rudolfi would have to kill Bolan, or else lose his own right to live. This type were the enemies who mattered. Bolin understood this, also.

  He only partially understood the English girl, God love her. Searching for her soul in a French whore house! He tried
to relate her search to his, but quickly gave it up as a hopeless intellectual exercise. He quite frankly did not understand the female mind. Women lived for different reasons than men. They were nest-builders, civilizers. Even in prostitution they labored toward an affirmation of life, consciously or not.

  Bolan, too, affirmed life—but in that paradoxical way. His supreme affirmation would be in his own death—and that awaited him around every corner.

  He sighed and tried to bring his mind out of the depths into which it had been plunged by the set-to with Judy Jones. He sent the little car along Quai Voltaire and across the Seine at Pont du Carrousel, then swung up Quai des Tuileries past La Place de la Concorde and onto the Champs.

  The skies had cleared, traffic was extremely light, and he found himself enjoying the quiet drive through early-morning Paris. It was with a feeling approaching regret that he pulled into the hotel garage.

  He left the car with a sleepy-eyed attendant and took the elevator directly to his floor, bypassing the lobby, and was thinking of the contrast between left-bank and right-bank Paris as he entered his suite. It was like two separate worlds. With all this luxury, he was thinking, the crumbling little hotel on Rue Galande had held something for Bolan that all this elegance could not supply. He went into his bedroom and switched on the light—and abruptly changed his mind regarding Champs d’Elysees accommodations.

  The girl in his bed was wearing nothing at all from the waist up. What he could see was solid elegance, and he could guess about the other areas. She sat up abruptly and held her arms out to him, her eyes straining for an adjustment to the sudden light.

  “Gilbear,” she crooned in a gently chiding tone, “I ’ave wait all night for you.”

  Oh hell, Bolan told himself.

  Her eyes found the adjustment they sought. She did a startled little double-take at Bolan and jerked the sheet up to cover the delectably bare torso.

  “But you are not Gilbear,” she quietly decided. “And so, ’oo are you?”

  Oh double hell, Bolan thought.

  And he was not using paradoxical logic.