Save the Children (10 page)

The third floor included the offices, Sheba's own personal quarters and a few very special rooms where anything could be had for a price.

Not many people made it to the third floor.

Owens had been up there a couple of times, but only as a guest. David Parelli threw parties for the employees from time to time on Sheba's third floor.

Now Owens went to the front of the parlor, where blackened windows provided privacy from the street.

Phoebe was on duty there, wearing a diaphanous, togalike garment that revealed more than it covered.

Owens passed on the message from Sheba.

The hooker led him to the elevator and accompanied him on the ride up to Sheba's office. She stood against him in the close confines of the elevator.

"Anything else I can do for you, Mr. Owens?"

He felt a warmth in his groin but knew he could not relax, not tonight.

Not with Bolan after him.

"Uh, no thanks," he told the whore. "I appreciate it, really, but right now I, uh, just want to take it easy."

"Suit yourself."

She led the way impersonally from the elevator to the door of the office across the ratty-smelling hallway. She carried a key with which she unlocked the door to Sheba's office, then stepped aside for him to enter.

He did, and she left him alone, closing the door after her.

The place was a combination office and gym, he saw as he looked around. One side of the big room had a desk and several comfortable chairs along with some filing cabinets, the other side was occupied by weight benches and Nautilus machines.

Sheba wasn't interested in anything as trendy as aerobics. Her workouts were serious business for her, not just a new way to pick up men.

There were several posed photographs of her on the walls, showing off her figure in skimpy bathing suits.

He crossed to the desk, on the side of the big room that was carpeted with a deep pile rug, where his footfalls made no sound.

The whole room was unnaturally quiet, in fact, and his experience with movie sets told him that the place was soundproof.

He put his hand out and touched the phone's receiver, then hesitated.

This phone could well be bugged, either by the cops or rival families of David Parelli, or by Sheba herself.

Whether the line was secure or not, though, he still had to get in touch with someone.

He had to find a place to hide.

Some place where the Executioner could not find him.

Or Bolan would find him, and then there would be hell to pay.

Bolan strode into Jimmy Kidd's like any other customer. He was not as well dressed as the other patrons, he saw as he looked around, but he did not look so rumpled as to stand out, either. The overcoat was a little smudged from where he had dropped it in the alley behind the warehouse, but he realized he could blend in easily with the other patrons.

The swirling haze of cigarette smoke seemed to hang like a curtain in the subdued lighting of the club. Rock and roll music throbbed from a jukebox, but the sounds were still only slightly more audible than the drunken, raucous conversations taking place all around him.

The name of this place had popped up from time to time in the intel updates Bolan received periodically on the current situation in Chicago.

This was reputed to be Mob connected, a rumor that had been verified by Tess.

According to the porn actress, David Parelli owned Jimmy Kidd's, as well as the adjoining massage parlor.

The bar was crowded, but Bolan found a space without having to shoulder his way in. He ordered a beer from an iron-eyed bartender.

There was a prickling on his back, as if a bull's-eye had formed there.

Several feet down the bar were two people who stood out even in this flamboyant crowd.

One was a woman, tall, flame-haired, wearing a leotard that revealed a heavily muscled hourglass figure.

The other was a blond man about half the size of the woman, wearing a sour expression.

The bartender brought Bolan his beer and set it on the hardwood surface.

"Randy Owens around?" Bolan asked.

"Don't know the guy," the bartender said offhandedly. He jerked his head in the direction of the small blond man and the large redheaded woman.

"Better go ask the boss. Anybody asks questions around here, Jimmy answers 'em. If he wants to."

Bolan left the beer untasted. He made his way through the press of people toward the blond punk who was obviously Jimmy Kidd.

He walked up to Jimmy Kidd and said, "I'm looking for Randy Owens."

Kidd stared at him, bug-eyed, and made noises with his mouth.

The redhead in the leotard turned and punched Bolan in the face.

Bolan saw the blow coming, but the sheer unexpectedness of it slowed his reaction time just enough to let the punch connect. He was moving his head out of the way when the woman's hard fist grazed his jaw. He took an involuntary step backward, regaining his balance.

By that time the woman was leaping into the air in some sort of martial arts kick, lashing out at him with a foot.

The kick caught him in the chest and staggered him once again.

She landed and tried to follow up with another spin kick.

Bolan caught her ankle in midair, lifted, twisted, heaved.

She went down head over heels, crashing hard on the floor.

Nearby customers scrambled out of the way.

Bolan glanced back at the bar.

Jimmy Kidd came up from behind the bar with a sawed-off shotgun, tracking both barrels at Bolan, his finger starting to curl around the trigger.

The guy wasn't thinking, Bolan knew. Even if Jimmy Kidd hit his target, the shotgun blast would injure innocent people at this range in this crowded bar.

Bolan swept aside the overcoat and the Beretta 93-R leaped into his hand, discreetly coughing once in the microsecond before Jimmy Kidd could fire that shotgun.

The 9 mm stinger drilled into the bridge of Kidd's nose, plowing on through into his brain, driving Kidd back forcefully, knocking bottles from the bar shelves, the barrel of the scattergun dropping as he staggered.

The dead man's finger tightened on the trigger and a blast erupted from the shotgun.

Kidd succeeded in blowing off his own feet.

Total bedlam gripped the bar.

Customers pushed and pulled and screamed in their struggle to get out of there before any more gunfire exploded. Bolan saw two bartenders diving for weapons underneath the bar.

He could not allow a firefight to erupt here.

Spotting a curtain of beads on the wall that opened into a corridor beyond, he forced a path through the stampeding mob and dodged into that hall.

The corridor wasn't a long one, and as he burst out of the other end, he saw that he had entered Sheba's massage parlor.

He glanced over his shoulder and spotted the bartenders pounding down the hall after him.

One of them snapped a shotgun to his shoulder and unleashed an ear-numbing blast.

Bolan dived to one side, putting the corner of the wall between himself and that shotgun.

The pellets slammed into the opposite wall, tearing out a gaping hole.

He twisted, and stuck the Beretta around the corner, triggering off a 3-round burst.

One of the bullets missed, but two of the shotgun wielders went down, one of them flopping loosely in a deadfall, the other trying to stem the flow of blood spurting from his destroyed neck.

That was enough to drive the others back to the far end of the hall where there was some cover.

People were popping out of the rooms along this hall, most of them half-naked.

The shooting was throwing the whole place into a panic.

Whores, some nude, some barely in the togalike outfits, scrambled for places to hide.

The customers, fearing a police raid, just wanted
out,
most of them clutching their clothes and trying to dress on the run.

Bolan surged to his feet and joined the crowd, weaving through the perspiring flesh until he reached the lobby of the place.

A young woman there was trying to get out from behind her desk and make a break through the front door like everyone else, but the surge of people coming from the cubicle area with the same idea had her momentarily pinned in.

Bolan managed to move up to her in the melee. He grabbed her by a shoulder.

"Where's Owens?" he rapped.

Her eyes flicked upward, indicating the upper levels of the building. Then she started thinking and regarded Bolan in confusion.

"Who the hell are you?"

"Somebody's after Owens," he shot back. "We've got to move him."

"He's up in Sheba's office," she said.

Bolan turned and rushed his way back against the tide of oncoming human confusion that parted meekly before the tall, broad-shouldered man with the Beretta and the grim countenance.

Bolan reasoned that Sheba's office would be on the top floor.

He took the steps three at a time, watching constantly for any sign of danger. He met a few people coming down these stairs, but they were simply more of the disheveled normal occupants of the place.

Bolan had seen the elevator in the lobby. He preferred the stairs.

Those he passed shrank back against the wall when they saw him coming, more than willing to let him race on past and away from them.

He paused at the second floor landing long enough to ascertain that there were no offices there. He continued on up the stairs.

When he reached the third floor, it took him only a moment to locate a large set of double doors that had to lead into an office.

Beretta ready, he drew back a foot and kicked the doors open.

Inside, Randy Owens looked up in shock from behind the desk, frozen in the act of dialing a telephone.

"Don't move," Bolan warned, leveling the pistol at him.

"How... how did you..."

Owens looked stunned that his fate had caught up with him so quickly. So easily.

Bolan knew he had only fleeting minutes before the melee downstairs straightened itself out enough for someone to figure out where he had gone.

"Put down the phone, Randy."

Owens did as he was told.

"Sure," he said shakily. "What do you want to know?"

"You neglected to mention the last time we spoke that you're a porn king and that David Parelli finances you," Bolan growled, the Beretta's snout unwavering from the bead he had on Owens's forehead.

"I... I don't know what you mean." Owens smiled weakly. "I see Parelli's mother, uh, socially, so what? That don't mean I know the family's business."

"Cut the crap, Randy. He's your boss. I know he finances your movies."

"It's... just a business arrangement," Owens said quickly. He looked like a man on the run, a sort of rumpled desperation about him. "I don't have anything else to do with Parelli, I swear!"

"What about kid porn? What do you have to do with that?"

Owens gaped back at him, his mouth working, but a moment passed before he could say anything.

"K-kid p-p-porn?" he finally managed to gasp out. "I don't know what the hell you're talking about! I've never gone near that stuff! Hell, it's hard enough working with adults!"

Revulsion made a bad taste in Bolan's mouth, but he could sense Owens was too shaken to lie. If Owens knew something, thought Bolan, he'd spill it to save his own life, or to send Bolan off on a wild-goose chase.

"You're sure?"

Owens was nearly scared to death.

"I swear! Honest, I never worked with kids. I've never touched a child, I swear, man!"

Bolan tried a shot in the dark.

"Tell me about Senator Dutton."

"Who?"

"Mark Dutton."

Owens blinked.

"The senator?"

His voice sounded genuinely puzzled. "I see him on TV sometimes, but..."

"I want a link between Dutton and Parelli," said Bolan.

Owens swallowed hard, his attention riveted on the Beretta's muzzle.

Bolan could hear the sounds of the commotion diminishing downstairs.

It would not be long before someone showed up here.

"I don't know nothing," Owens insisted frantically. "The senator's at some fund-raising dinner tonight, why don't you ask him?"

"I plan to," growled Bolan, "but I want Parelli most of all. Where is he, Randy?"

Owens shook his head. "I'd tell you if I knew, you must know that. You've got to believe me! I'd tell you!"

Bolan believed him. Grudgingly. He had needed to confront this guy with what he knew about abused children and a senator who drove a Porsche and who was protected by Mafia gunmen.

But something in the Executioner's gut told him that Owens was speaking the truth... as far as he knew it.

Owens had seemed like the surest bet Bolan could play, but, Bolan believed the guy facing the 93-R, and that made this bet a bad one.

He lowered the Beretta.

"Take my advice, Owens. Stay away from Denise Parelli. There's going to be more blood spilled in this town before the night's over and it could be yours if you get in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Owens swallowed audibly.

"What about the drugs you hand out on the set?"

"Hell, they do that in Hollywood, guy. All those actors are on some kind of shit!"

"I don't like you, Owens, but I don't blow people away just because they make me want to puke. I'm giving you a chance. Do like I told you. Get out of Chicago."

Bolan backed toward the door, then a sixth sense warned that someone was coming at him from behind.

He eased off on the Beretta's trigger at the last instant when he saw that the person standing there was unarmed.

The tall, redhaired Amazon had her hands on shapely leotard-encased hips and stood there openly glaring at him.

"We've got a score to settle, you big son of a bitch," she snarled, low and threatening. "Just you and me."

Great, thought Bolan.

"Put up the gun," she snarled. "You won't need it. I told everybody to stay downstairs until after I got finished with you. I don't like getting pushed around."

Owens blubbered from behind the desk.

"Sheba, don't be stupid! This is Mack frigging Bolan! Get some help up here. Now!"

"Take it easy, Randy boy," Sheba soothed. "We won't need any help. Not unless this guy feels like shooting a woman, and I've got old ice eyes here figured as a tough guy gentleman of the old school." She looked at Bolan and the Beretta without flinching. "Right, big guy?"

Bolan lifted the Beretta and lined the sights on Sheba's heart.

He said nothing.

He didn't have to.

The look in his eyes told her.

Sheba paled and dived backward out of the doorway, out of his line of fire.

"Get him!" she shrieked.

That had been the woman's plan, Bolan realized in that instant: get him to lower his weapon, then call in the boys she had waiting with guns in the hallway.

Bolan heard pounding footsteps in the hall.

He shot a glance over his shoulder.

Owens seemed to be glued in the chair behind the desk, his features twisted with apprehension and mounting panic.

Beyond Owens was a window and, outside the window, Bolan saw a metal fire escape.

He swung around in time to see a .45-carrying goon pop his face around the doorway. He squeezed off a silenced round that drilled the guy in the shoulder and made him drop the pistol.

Two long strides put Bolan across the living quarters of Sheba's office.

He leaped onto the desk, and in one smooth motion he followed through, vaulting over a whimpering Owens. Bolan lowered his shoulder and dived through the window behind the desk, shattering the glass, landing unhurt on the fire escape beyond.

In the rapidly gathering twilight, he saw flashing police lights racing from downtown.

The cops were on their way, drawn by the shooting.

It was a night of hide, seek and kill.

He leathered the Beretta and bounded down the steps of the fire escape as shots began whining through the broken window after him.

He touched only three or four of the treaders in the first flight, then grabbed the railing and swung himself around in a tight turn when he reached the landing.

Men poked their heads out through the window and fired down after him, projectiles ricocheting wildly from the metal stairs, throwing sparks into the night as bullets whanged off metal.

At the next landing, Bolan leaped over the railing, then dropped the remaining few feet to the alley.

He jogged toward the lights of Rush Street.

Someone emerged to block his way.

Sheba.

Even in gloom of lights from the street, her red hair shone like fire.