War Against The Mafia Part 5

"Which-what?" "Just tell him that. Oh, and you'd better go get that guy out of the vault before this whole place goes up. Oh, and tell Plasky thanks for the bucks, they'll come in handy." He picked up the case of money and opened the door. The girls were already dashing toward the private office. Bolan chuckled and stepped onto the sidewalk, pulling the door closed. He'd returned to the scene of the crime, and by G.o.d he'd committed another one, and by G.o.d he wondered how The Family would appreciate this one.

He suspected that financial considerations were gut-matters to the Matthews. Bolan suspected also that he certainly knew how to hurt a Mafiosi. He walked around the corner, got into his car, and chuckled all the way home.

The Council "Listen, something's gotta be done about that sonuvab.i.t.c.h!" Seymour snarled. "He's running wild, hog wild, all over the d.a.m.n place-- burning, and killing, and stealing, and-and..." "Look who's complaining," Turrin commented bitterly.

"Yes, I'm complaining!" Seymour roared.

"He was your G.o.dd.a.m.n man!

Couldn't you spot the son of a b.i.t.c.h for a phoney without having to get word down from upstairs? You creep, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d you-Jesus Christ, any dumb dago wop would know the son of a b.i.t.c.h is a phoney! If you weren't laying up with those f.u.c.king s.l.u.ts of yours all the G.o.dd.a.m.n time you might-was Turrin leaped to his feet and threw a wild punch at his tormentor. Seymour dodged back out of the way, his face going white, his hand scrabbling about for a weapon and coming up with a c.o.ke bottle.

Nat Plasky stepped between them, his arms waving wildly. "Stop it!

Stop it!" he yelled. "Don't you think this is what the b.a.s.t.a.r.d wants? He wants us at each other's throats. Now stop it!" Leo Turrin's lips were quivering with rage, but he hunched his shoulders, clenched his hands together, and dropped back into his chair.

"I'm sorry, Leo," Seymour said humbly.

"I didn't mean that crack about the wops." Turrin merely nodded and stared broodingly at the toe of his shoe.

"The Man is going to be very upset over that quarter-million," Plasky said, after a short silence.

Seymour nodded his head. "We'll get it back." "Sure we will," Turrin sneered mildly.

"I don't hardly remember even what the guy looks like," Plasky ventured. "I only saw him twice, and then just for a few minutes. How the h.e.l.l did he know about the organization money being in that vault? Huh?

How'd he know?" "Didn't you know?" Turrin grunted. "He's the f.u.c.k Phantom. The f.u.c.k Phantom knows everything." "I thought that was the Shadow," Plasky mused.

"Will you two for Christ's sake shut up!" Seymour roared.

"Just pa.s.sin" the time," Plasky replied meekly.

"Well, crack your knuckles or something," Seymour growled. He studied his watch for a moment.

"The others will be here in a few minutes." Turrin heaved up out of his chair and went over to the bar, half-filled a tumbler with bourbon, added an ice cube, then carried it back to his chair, sipping glumly. "The trouble," Turrin said presently, "is that you people don't know this guy. I do. I know him. And I'm shakie. Believe me, I'm shaking. The guy is a military machine, believe me. I had a sergeant like him once, just about like him. He scared the s.h.i.t outta me, too. And so does Bolan. I'm telling you, this guy-was "d.a.m.nit, shut up!" Seymour screamed emotionally.

"No, no I'm not gonna shut up!" Turrin went on stubbornly. "You gotta know who you're dealing with. Now look at it, just look at it. The nerve of this b.a.s.t.a.r.d. In the s.p.a.ce of--what--three or four hours?--he hits us bing! bing! bing!--just like clockwork. He burns down my prize palace, completely wrecks an eight-thousand dollar automobile, scares the living s.h.i.t right outta me, smashes Jake's leg, completely terrorizes and demolishes the whole d.a.m.n place." He paused to sip nervously at his drink. "Then he slips away and turns up a few minutes later at my house--my house, mind you, has a chatty little rat-fink conversation with my wife, and G.o.d that's a whole "nother story." He laughed nervously. "Then, pow! he shows up at Seymour's shack; dyes the swimming pool red, tosses in a couple of bath houses and the carved-up bodies of Paul and Tony, cuts off the phones and lights, slashes up the beds--just to show us what could've happened if somebody had been in them, I guess--and unloads five slugs into Walt's fancy oil painting. Now that should be enough to hold anybody for a week--but no--he ain't done yet. He cruises down to Triangle, burns all the loan records, locks Thomas in the vault, and walks away with a quarter-million of our buried bucks. I had a sergeant like that once.

He took it into his head to crew every wh.o.r.e in Singapore, without paying yet, and he d.a.m.n near did." "Are you now finished with your eulogy?" Seymour asked coldly.

"Yeah. I'm finished. And I think we oughta suggest to the council that we all blow this town for a while. We all need a vacation anyway. I been promising the wife I'd take her to Acapulco for a swing. Let the contract boys take over, and we can come home after it's all settled." Plasky laughed nervously. Seymour was glaring at Turrin with cold contempt. At that moment the double doors were swept open and four men entered, forming a sort of honor guard for an older man who walked in between them. The three men already present rose quickly to their feet. The four-man guard force deployed themselves about the room, one remaining in the open doorway. Then a man of about 60 with white hair and a kindly face, shook hands with the other three, his warm eyes and firm grasp rea.s.suring them. He took his place at the head of the table.

"Well, now, what is going on, eh?" he asked mildly, his eyes shifting from Seymour to Plasky to Turrin and back to Seymour again.

"It's this nut, Bolan," Seymour replied in a choked voice. "The hit didn't go off. I guess he got the drop on the two boys from Philadelphia. Anyway, he got them instead." "Yes, I know about that," the white-haired man said calmly.

"Well, now he's gone berserk," Plasky put in. "He's been making hits all over town. He hit my operation and walked away with the bag-drop--a quarter of a million dollars." "He burned down my prize palace and terrorized my wife," Turrin said, staring at his fingers.

"He killed two of my boys," Seymour groused. "Raised h.e.l.l with my house, too." "Raised h.e.l.l?" Seymour nodded. "Put dye in my pool.

Destroyed two cabanas. Cut through the power cable and the telephone line. Slashed up all of my beds." He shrugged. "I'd call that raising h.e.l.l." "Shot up his oil painting, too," Turrin added with a half-smile. "You know the fancy one over the mantel, the Chairman of the Board type picture." "Is this one soldier, or is this one army?" the man asked, raising his eyebrows.

"It's one lunatic!" Seymour said savagely. "Listen, Sergio, we got to do something about this nut!" "So what have you been doing?" the one called Sergio inquired.

The three men exchanged embarra.s.sed glances.

"Besides hiding, I mean." The old man coughed delicately. "Has the organization grown so soft? So soft that one man, one lone man, can send the entire organization scampering into holes?" "That's no ordinary man," Turrin said defensively. "I had a sergeant once that-was "Oh for G.o.d's sake shut up about your G.o.dd.a.m.n wh.o.r.e-hopping sergeant!" Seymour cried.

Turrin jumped to his feet and shook his fist at the other. "One more word outta you about my wh.o.r.es and I'm gonna shove one right square up your a.s.s, Mr. Comptroller--you understand? Right up your a.s.s!" "Sit down and shut up, Leopold!" Sergio snapped. "Why take out all your anger on one another? There is a common enemy--is there not?" He shook a finger at Walt Seymour. "And all this is your ultimate responsibility, Walter," he added. "Can you see this? The first mistake was yours. You let him in, and gave him the opportunity to know us. Can you see this? And now the advantage is his. He can go to the ground now and dare us to sniff him out. This is costing a lot of money, a lot of money." "I suspected him right from the start," Seymour growled. "Turrin's the one brought him in. I figured he was some sort of plant. I've just been waiting for him to hang himself!" "You dumb s.h.i.t!" Turrin snarled. "Who the h.e.l.l do you think he's hanging? Himself?" "Shut up!" the old man roared, showing his fire.

"The dumbnesses have been done and they are finished.

Understand They are finished! One more, just one more, and we will bring The Family together in full council and some dumbnesses will end up in the river! Do you understand? Do you?" "Yes, Sergio," Turrin replied meekly.

"Well?" The old man's eyes were blazing full glare on the other two. "Sure-sure, Sergio," Seymour said quickly. "I understand, Sergio," Plasky a.s.sured him.

"Twenty years ago I would not sit at the same table with such rabbits," the old man said scathingly.

"All right, listen to me. I have issued the open contract on your Bolan. But you cannot rest behind that. Now you have money, you have brains, you have power, and you are Mafiosi. Now why should Sergio care about this Bolan-eh? Is Bolan after Sergio?

No. No. Bolan is after Walter, and Nathan, and Leopold. Eh? Bolan does not even know of Sergio. Right! He snapped his fingers at one of the background men and made a drinking motion with his other hand. The man swung around to the bar, poured a gla.s.s of wine, and moved quickly to the table with it, placing it before the old man. He sipped it. The others remained silent. The man who had brought the wine went back to his station. Sergio sipped again, then placed the gla.s.s on the table. "Just the same," the old man continued, "Sergio has put one hundred thousand dollars on the line for your necks.

The Family cares, you see. Just see that you are deserving of that care. Eh?" At that instant the picture-window at the far side of the room seemed to explode and fall apart.

The man who had just served Sergio grunted and fell forward onto his face. The gla.s.s containing the wine disappeared, but the wine remained to form a pool on the surface of the table. The delayed cra-ack of a high-powered rifle galvanized the paralyzed men at the table, the four of them taking to the floor beneath the table, their faces contorted with the fear of a personal doomsday. The distant explosions were rolling in unceasingly now and the thwack of big-calibre bullets plowing into floors and walls told eloquently the story of cause and effect.

The fusillade ended as abruptly as it had begun. Turrin raised his head and stared into the frightened eyes of the white-haired Sergio. Plasky and Seymour were grunting with emotion. The four other men were strewn about the large room in crumpled heaps.

"He knows you now, Father Sergio," Turrin declared shakily.

The old lips curled back over dully gleaming teeth and a balled fist pounded impotently upon the floor. "Get him!" Sergio hissed. "Get this Bolan! You understand? Get this Bolan!"

The Goof It was time to be moving on to another billet. The Executioner could not afford to spend too much time in any one spot. He had changed into night-fighter garb of dull black. The.32 caliber pistol had been replaced by a.45 caliber U.s.

Army automatic, strapped to his waist.

He wore black sneakers and a black beret. He looked at himself in a mirror and laughed. The tight-fitting costume gave him a comic-strip appearance. If he should b.u.mp into anyone on the street, they'd probably think him dressed for a masquerade ball. The Marlin and the case of Mafia money were already stowed in the car, along with other personal effects. He went through the small apartment one last time to be sure that there was no evidence of his habitation there, then picked up the bag and departed.

It was twenty minutes past two o'clock in the morning.

He drove directly to Leo Turrin's home, arriving there at a few minutes before three. It was a fashionable district of curving streets and upper middle-cla.s.s homes. Bolan left his car on a street behind the Turrin place, vaulted a fence, and cut across another piece of property to reach the Turrin rear approach. A dog began barking several yards down. Bolan climbed atop Turrin's garage and lay on the dark side of the sloping roof, studying the house for interior layout.

A dim light burned behind a frosted window downstairs, obviously a bathroom. Another faint glow was issuing from a room upstairs.

Bolan remembered that there were three Turrin children, and tried to sketch in bedroom details in his mind. The upstairs glow, he decided, was coming from a nursery or at least a child's bedroom. Again he tried to project the interior arrangement of the home into his mind, but the outside architecture was too unusual to provide any reliable clues to the inner structure. The windows appeared to be of the type which crank open, and all in Bolan's vision were closed tightly.

Somebody had come out and quieted the barking dog.

Bolan thought about that for a moment, then looked around for something to make some noise with. He pried loose a Spanish tile from the peak of the garage roof and hurled it to the patio below. It struck a metal table with a loud clank then slithered across the flagstones with great effect. Bolan's eyes were straining in the effort to cover all windows at once.

He was rewarded. A drapery moved in a window of a corner room upstairs. Somebody was peering out of the window, but this was more a feeling than a certainty. He pried off another tile and repeated the performance. The drapery swung with sudden motion and a light came on in the same room. Bolan caught a glimpse of Leo Turrin hastily turning away from the window and, before the drape could swing closed, a momentary expose of a dark-haired woman upon a bed, her hand still upon a lamp at bedside. Bolan grinned, imagining his consternation when his wife roused and switched on that lamp. He lay still, waited, and watched--and again was rewarded. Turrin, in pajamas, was out in the yard, inching along in the shadows of the house.

Apparently he had come out the front door and was making a flanking movement around the side of the house.

Bolan smiled appreciatively, and watched.

Turrin was at the back corner now, standing very still.

Undoubtedly he was armed. They played the waiting game for several minutes, then something sailed across the patio and bounced against the side of the garage.

Bolan smiled. Same game, same rules, he thought. Then he lost sight of the prey. He lay still and waited, eyes probing the darkness, thankful for his advantage of height. He was aware, also, of another advantage. A woman and three children, flesh and blood of the adversary, were within that house--a pressure point for the interloper. Bolan wondered vaguely why Turrin had not evacuated the civilians, but there was no time to push on for a decision on the question. Turrin had reappeared at the far corner, apparently reversing his field with a probe to the other flank.

Bolan was once again beginning to respect the Sicilian. At least he was out there, in the open, taking the battle to the enemy, not in there hiding with the women and children. He moved into the open then and said, "Bolan?" in a soft voice. Bolan shook his head and silently clucked his tongue. Turrin was walking toward the garage, very slowly, stopping every couple of steps and pausing momentarily, apparently to listen. There was a gun in his hand, Bolan could see it plainly now. A flashlight was in the other.

Bolan considered that for a moment, and watched Turrin pa.s.s by the garage and move on to the other side of the yard. Silently Bolan slithered down the sloping roof, dropped lightly to the ground, and boldly stepped off toward the shadows of the house. He heard Turrin's soft "Bolan?" once again, coming from the far back corner of the property, then he moved quietly around the side of the house and up the steps to the front door. Just as he suspected, the door was standing slightly ajar. He grinned. They were obviously pocketless pajamas-- and if he was carrying a gun in one hand and a flashlight in the other, it had been a lead-pipe cinch he wasn't carrying a house-key between his toes --he wouldn't have locked himself out. Bolan slipped inside the house and stood in the darkened entrance foyer, wondering how much longer he would wander around out there in the yard. He really had not desired to kill Leo from a distance, with a sniper's bullet.

There had been a certain friendship between them--the least Bolan could do was to look him in the eye as he killed him. Irrational, perhaps, he realized that, but then war itself was irrational.

The wait was not a long one. Turrin came in only a minute or so behind Bolan, breathing softly. He closed the door and locked it and stood there for a moment, his back to the unsuspected visitor. Bolan wondered about the thoughts occupying the mind of the prey as he stood there silently in the dark at that locked door--what was he thinking? what were the last thoughts of a doomed man?

Bolan reached forward and placed the muzzle of the .45 at the base of Turrin's head. "I knew it," Turrin said, exhaling quickly. "I knew you were there the moment I turned that lock." There was a brief silence, then: "You don't want to shoot me, Bolan--not until we've talked it over." "It will be a lousy mess for your wife to clean up," Bolan said quietly. The darkness was stygian, but Bolan could feel the mask of death twisting the other man's face. Bolan had seen it before, other places; he had worn it himself, many times, and knew how it felt, the grotesque twisting of all the little muscles awaiting the final clap of doom, the paralyzed diaphragm, the aching ribcage. He did not want to prolong that misery.

His free hand reached forward.

"Let go the gun, Leo," he commanded.

The long-barreled pistol reluctantly changed hands. Bolan tossed it behind him and it clattered to the floor.

"I can't blame you for the way you feel," Turrin said, his voice tight with emotion.

"You can't?" "No. Your sister was a sweet kid, Bolan." "You just said the wrong thing, mister," Bolan said savagely, jabbing the automatic harshly into the unyielding skull. "Now unlock that door and open it, slowly--slowly!" "Where we going?" Turrin asked, half-choking on the words.

"A tender mercy for the wife and kids." Bolan said harshly.

At that instant an overhead light flashed into brilliance. Bolan reacted automatically, flinging himself sideways against the wall, the.45 swinging up and around, seeking a new threat. Turrin's wife stood several feet inside the living room, her face a tight mask, one hand raised and stretched toward Bolan. He checked the heavy swing of the.45 just in time, his shot gouging into a chair and sending it skittering across the room. Bolan's eyes were smarting under the sudden candlepower and his ears rang from the boom of the heavy-caliber gun, magnified by the closeness of the foyer; perhaps this is why he did not see the tiny pistol in Angelina Turrin's outstretched hand.

The little popping sounds it was making seemed to bear no relevance to the sudden stinging sensations at his shoulder and temple, but he knew instinctively that he had been shot. Turrin had flung himself away and down and was rolling madly across the floor. Bolan squeezed off two shots at the retreating figure as he lurched out the door, routed by a pet.i.te woman with a dainty weapon--not only routed but wounded in the process. He could feel the blood running down the side of his neck as he pounded around the corner of the house, and wondered vaguely how seriously he was. .h.i.t. He got the.45 holstered on the run and cleared the fence without effort, and decided that he could not be hurt too badly although the shoulder was beginning to burn fiercely. He dashed across the other yard and was nearly into the street when he heard the sounds of converging sirens. He hesitated only for a moment, electing to leave the car sit where it was rather than to try outwitting the cops in an automobile at such an hour of the morning. Any car in motion would be a certain target for the cops. He ran on across the street and through another yard, then diagonally across an open field. Distance was what he needed right now--as much distance as he could get on foot and bleeding from two gunshot wounds. Well, he thought, you deserve it, you dumb b.a.s.t.a.r.d. He'd tried to fraternize with the enemy. It wouldn't work. d.a.m.nit, there was no such thing as morality in warfare. You drop them when you can and where you can. It is kill or be killed. He'd learned the lesson well in the jungles of Southeast Asia. Why had he chosen to forget it here, in the jungles of the Mafia? He cursed himself for an idiot and hurried on to a distant hulk of buildings, pressing his beret against the head wound to stanch the flow of blood. The entire world seemed alive with screaming sirens. The cops had been waiting for him, of course. They'd staked out his known targets and just sat back and waited for him to strike. Another mistake for The Executioner.

He would have to rea.s.sess his battle plan. He wasn't going against the wily Cong now. He was going against the wily Americans, and he wasn't going to be allowed many mistakes like this one. And, judging from the roaring in his ears, perhaps he would not be allowed even this one. He was shot, and he was bleeding to death, and he knew it. He needed more than distance now. It was a mistake that he got shot, it shouldn't have turned out that way, but it did, and wars are lost on mistakes. He needed more than distance. He knew that. He needed a place to lay his head, a place to rest his wounds, a place to stuff back in the precious lifeblood. The Executioner needed a sanctuary. Or else the wrong person was going to end up being executed. It was as certain as death.

The Executioner had goofed.

Sanctuary A bleary-eyed lieutenant Weatherbee stepped from the squad car and walked over to the police cruiser that was swung into the intersection just above the Turrin residence. He nodded tiredly at the uniformed cop who stood at the open door of the cruiser and said, "How soon after the gunshots did you get this street sealed?" "Must have been less than a half-minute," the officer replied. "I was on station two blocks down. Soon's I heard the shooting I came right on up, and I've been here ever since. Only thing I've seen is our own people." Weatherbee grunted, stared down the street for several seconds, then returned to his car. The plain-clothesman behind the wheel gave him a sympathetic look. "Slipped through, didn't he," the man said quietly.

Weatherbee sighed. "I'm sure he did.

Turrin says he was dressed like a commando, all in black. Said he moves as soft as a cat and just about as fast. That Turrin is a mighty lucky boy, and doesn't he know it." "You have to admire that Bolan guy," the officer commented.

"Maybe you have to," Weatherbee grunted. "I don't." "Don't get me wrong, Also. I just meant-- well, you know, he didn't even return the Turrin woman's fire. I mean, he could have taken her easy, we both know that. Instead, he elected to break off and run." "Maybe he panicked," Weatherbee mused.

"She thinks she hit him. just because we couldn't find any blood... A wounded man isn't going to run too far, Bob. I'm going to get about twenty more men on foot in this area. I've got to stop that guy before..." He picked up the radio microphone and smoothly pa.s.sed instructions over the special net, then he told his driver, "Okay, let's get over to the eastern perimeter and work back this way." The man nodded, wheeled the squad car about and speeded eastward on the city arterial. "We shoot to kill, right?" the man said under his breath.

"You d.a.m.n well better," Weatherbee replied glumly.

They turned onto a north-south residential street and immediately went into a slow cruise.

Weatherbee released a short-barrelled shotgun from the rack and inspected it for readiness. The driver unholstered his revolver and placed it on the seat beside his leg. "Well, it's a lousy way to make a living," he muttered, sighing heavily.

"h.e.l.l, you're talking to an expert on the subject," Weatherbee said. "Look..." He stiffened suddenly. "Somebody just opened a door down there in those duplexes. Cut your lights!" Bolan's legs were getting rubbery and each breath he took was becoming sheer misery. He had reached a more modest neighborhood and was painfully making his way across an open expanse of well-kept lawn bordering an apartment complex when he saw a window light up on a ground floor in the curving row of buildings. He dropped to one knee and examined the gauze pad he'd thrust in between his blouse and the shoulder wound. It was not bleeding quite so badly now, he decided--or maybe he was just running out of blood.

He made a wry face and felt gingerly with fingertips the scratch at his temple. He'd lost a bit of skin on that one, and that was all, and the blood had started to clot pretty well but it still hurt like h.e.l.l and he had a headache that wouldn't quit.

He threw himself p.r.o.ne suddenly and rolled into a clump of hedge; automobile headlights had swept around the curve in the street downrange from Bolan's position and almost at the same instant a door had opened in a building slightly up-range. The headlamps winked out immediately and Bolan knew a sinking sensation as he noted that the car was still moving forward slowly in his direction. An outside light flashed on, up at the open door, and a woman stepped outside. She was wearing a housecoat and something was tied about her head.

She was calling out something in a soft voice; to Bolan's exhausted consciousness it sounded as though she were whispering, "t.i.tty, t.i.tty." The automobile glided past within spitting distance of Bolan and stopped opposite the woman. She recoiled back toward her door and a man's voice, from the driver's window of the car, sang out, "Police, lady. What's the trouble?" Bolan could hear the woman catch her breath then giggle nervously. She walked halfway across the lawn toward the curb, remaining well within the glow from the porch light, then halted as the door on the opposite side of the car opened and a huge hulk of a man stepped out and addressed her over the top of the automobile. "I'm lieutenant Weatherbee," he said genially, "We are looking for a man. Would you mind telling us what you are doing out here at this time of night?" "Well, I'm not looking for a man," she replied, laughing breathlessly. "My cat woke me up yowling, and I thought I'd better bring her in.

There's a big mean tomcat around here that just-was "Yes, ma'am--well, there is a dangerous man in the area. We'd just better check it out." Weatherbee had moved around the rear of the car and was standing on the sidewalk, a shotgun cradled casually in one arm. The other officer got out of the car and was looking about nervously, peering into the darkened areas to either side of the building. The trio was near enough that Bolan could hear the woman's fl.u.s.tered breathing.

Weatherbee had requested permission to look inside the house, and the woman had consented. "Stay here with the young lady, Bob," the lieutenant said, and went cautiously down the walk and into the building.

The other officer had leaned inside the squad car and was now directing a spotlight along the sides of the buildings. Weatherbee reappeared, then went out of sight again in the shadows. Something brushed against Bolan's cheek; he checked his reaction in the flashing recognition of purring cat fur, and quietly curled his good arm about the animal and stroked it lovingly. The cat settled there in the crook of Bolan's arm, curled into a contented ball.

Weatherbee showed up again, walking into the brilliant spot of the police car light, stepped quickly out of it, and approached the couple at the curb in a tired amble.

"Did you find my cat?" the woman asked.

"No, ma'am, nor mine," Weatherbee replied. "You'd better let the cat go for now. Go on back inside and lock your door. We will wait here until you're safely b.u.t.toned up. And thank you for your trouble." The woman said something Bolan did not catch, laughed lightly, and ran to the door, turned and waved at the policemen, then went inside and closed the door. The porch light went out. A moment later the headlights of the police car flashed on and it moved on down the street.

Bolan clung to the cat and ran to the building in a low crouch, then harshly ruffled and pulled the cat's fur, holding it against the screen door. The cat screeched and clawed at the screen, fighting to loose itself from Bolan's grasp. Almost immediately the door cracked open. Bolan flung the screen door aside and stepped in, thrusting the cat into the arms of the stunned woman.

"I brought you your cat," he said, grinning. He closed the door and leaned against it. "Please don't raise a fuss. I'll leave if you insist." She was looking at him as though it were all too unbelievable, and as though she expected him to vaporize or disappear into the thin air he had sprung from. Her eyes took in his weird costume, the gun at his waist, the blood-soaked shoulder. "You're hurt," she mumbled.

He nodded his head. "I've been shot. If you'll just let me stay a while I promise you won't be hurt." The shoulder was beginning to burn as though a hot poker had been stabbed into it.

"The policeman said you're dangerous," she said in a half-whisper.

"Not for you," he a.s.sured her.

The cat leaped from the woman's arms and ran into another room. Bolan gazed longingly at the couch. "There's a small bullet in my shoulder," he said. "I need some disinfectant and a pair of tweezers." "Of course." She moved swiftly toward a narrow hall way. Bolan followed, not certain that she was not trying to get to a telephone. She stepped into a bathroom. He sighed, returned to the living room, and sank onto the couch.

"Do you live alone?" he called out tiredly.

Her head reappeared in the open bathroom doorway. "Nope. Tabatha lives with me." She wrinkled her nose. "Tabatha is my cat.

Two old maids together, that's us." She went out of sight again, and Bolan began working his way out of the jersey blouse. When she returned to the living room carrying a small metal tray, Bolan had succeeded in freeing one arm and his head from the tight-fitting slip-over and was carefully peeling it away from his injured arm. The woman had removed the scarf affair from her head and had obviously taken time to hastily brush out her hair from the large rollers it had been wrapped around. Bolan decided that she was a very pretty woman, small and delicate with luminous eyes and a decidedly intelligent face.

She set the tray on a coffee table and helped him with the blouse, making sympathetic sounds over the shoulder wound. "It's been bleeding a lot," she observed. "Is the bullet still in there?" He nodded grimly, his eyes on the tray she had brought in. A pair of eyebrow tweezers stood upright in a small gla.s.s of colorless liquid. A roll of gauze, a box of bandages, and a large bottle of merthiolate completed the a.s.sortment.

"I'm sterilizing the tweezers in alcohol," she told him. "Is that all right?" He nodded his head again and reached for the merthiolate.