Save the Children (9 page)

Bolan tracked to the right with the .44 and triggered a rapid double-punch.

The two slugs found their mark, slamming into the remaining hardguys.

Bolan spun back toward the office.

Owens and Carson had been somewhat slower to react to the commotion than the three goons, who were trained for such things, but by this time they had recovered their wits.

They came running out of the office, Carson in the lead holding a small Colt revolver.

Owens just ran.

The accountant skidded to a stop as he saw Bolan turning to face him. Carson jerked his small revolver up and fired.

Bolan heard the slug zip past his ear. He stroked Big Thunder's trigger, holding the muzzle down against the recoil.

The crack of Carson's shot was lost in the roar of the AutoMag, a head shot that all but took the money man's head apart, splattering a gory mess across the glass wall of the office a few feet behind him.

Carson's body slammed back and he fell, joining his three men in death on the dirty floor.

Bolan's eyes searched the shadows around him for Owens. He heard running footsteps echoing from the back of the building.

One of the actresses shouted from that direction.

"Hey, wait a minute! Take us with you, goddamn it! Wait a minute!"

A door slammed somewhere in the rear of the studio.

Bolan raced in the direction of the noise. He heard a car door slam and an engine crank to life. He bit off a curse. He could not let Owens escape!

"Hold it!"

Bolan stopped, Big Thunder ready in his fist.

A figure materialized out of the shadows and Bolan recognized him as the man who had been operating the camera. The guy held a pistol trained on Bolan. Bolan noticed that the gun was the one that the first goon had dropped when Bolan blew him away. The cameraman's hand was shaking as he pointed the weapon at the Executioner.

"Put it down," the soldier ordered sharply. "My quarrel's not with you."

"Not with me? Hell, the way you're shooting up the place, what does it matter who your quarrel's with?" the cameraman said. "I just want out of here!"

"Then put the gun down and go," Bolan told the guy.

"So you can shoot me in the back? No thanks!"

The warrior looked at the young man for several seconds, then slid the AutoMag back into its holster.

His quarrel tonight was not with a flunky who was guilty of no more than operating a camera.

"Take off," he growled. "You won't get a better offer."

The cameraman studied Bolan for a moment, gulped nervously, then bent and gingerly placed the pistol on the floor. Then he turned and bolted for the nearest exit.

Bolan followed, alert for any traps that might be waiting for him.

Nothing happened until he almost reached a narrow door in the rear corner of the building.

Then a woman bumped into him.

It was Tess. She gave a choked, panicky cry, pummeling his chest with her small fists.

"Let me go, let me go!" she wailed.

Bolan gave her a firm but gentle shove that sent her staggering away from him.

"I don't have you," he pointed out. "Where's Randy?"

She had donned a silk wrap that fell open with the push. She jerked it tightly about her, clasping the see-through material closed and folding her arms across her chest.

"He ran out on us, the rotten son of a bitch!" she raged. "He said if we were ever raided, he'd stick with us, that dirty lying bastard!"

"Did he actually leave, or is he still here somewhere?"

"I saw him drive off. He had his car parked out there behind some garbage cans. A good place for slime like him to park, if you ask me."

"Where are your friends, Babs and Rudy?"

The brunette threw a glance over her shoulder.

"Scared to come out of the dressing room. They're hiding under the bed. Hey, you're not a cop at all, are you?" She stepped back, her apprehension mounting.

"I came for Owens, not you," he assured her.

That did not convince her. She started trembling.

"Oh, mister... please... we heard the shooting but we haven't seen anything. I haven't seen you, okay? Please let us go..."

"I'm not going to hurt you," he said firmly. "Where would Owens be likely to go?"

Tess swallowed and hugged herself.

Here in the back of the warehouse, away from the hot lights, there was a chill in the air.

"He... he hangs out at a bar on Rush Street," she told him. "A place called Jimmy Kidd's. Right next to a massage parlor called Sheba's. They're both part of the same operation."

"Why would Owens go there?"

"He'd feel safe there if he was scared and on the run. Jimmy and Sheba would see to that. And he sure looked scared when he hauled ass on his way out of here. Ran right past me!"

"Jimmy and Sheba. They own the setup?"

A nod of the dark head.

"They run the place. I think Randy's real boss is that Mr. Parelli."

Bolan took a step closer to her at that statement.

She flinched but stayed where she was, clutching the wrap to her throat.

"What do you know about Parelli?"

"He's been here," Tess answered in a strained voice. "I don't know if I should talk about him..."

"Tess, have they ever filmed kid porn here?"

She forgot her fear and her eyes flashed angrily at him.

"Look here, whatever the hell your name is, I do this sort of thing for the cameras once in a while when I'm short on the rent, okay? I'm not a pervert."

"Do you know of any films like that being shot here?"

She cooled down a little.

"I... never heard about it. I wouldn't have worked for those creeps if I had. They were weird enough as it was!"

Bolan quickly assimilated the things the woman told him.

Tess could be lying about Owens's leaving the warehouse. He could still be hiding out somewhere in the building, if not on this floor then on one of those above. He just as quickly rejected those thoughts. The woman's manner and the sounds he'd heard of a car starting up just after Owens had fled, made him decide Tess was speaking the truth about the porno director having fled.

Bolan started past Tess, toward the outside metal door. "Take your friends and go," he advised her on his way out.

She hurried away in search of her friends, Babs and Rudy.

Bolan looked around, taking in the surroundings.

A few incendiary grenades would do the trick and send Parelli's warehouse up like kindling, but to do that Bolan would have to wait and make sure that the three actors were safely away, and he could not afford to waste the time.

He still had an appointment with Randy Owens at a bar called Jimmy Kidd's, next to a massage parlor called Sheba's.

Bolan pushed through the doorway, into the bitter cold.

Outside, the night was waiting.

Randy Owens was scared.

He parked his Lancia one block away from Jimmy Kidd's, the closest space he could find in the after-show crush. His legs were shaky as he hurried along the sidewalk toward the bar. He could not get that awful image out of his mind, the way that Bolan guy had looked when Randy and Carson came out of the office.

Owens had not even considered doing anything except running. And he had not looked back. He didn't want to know.

All he wanted now was a drink and a place to hide out for a while. He thought about calling Denise when he got inside, then the ache in his groin reminded him that maybe it wasn't such a great idea, not after what had happened earlier at the house. It had been bad enough after he and Denise Parelli had forced their way out of the closet where Bolan had stashed them.

Randy still felt queasy from the knee in his crotch and from being knocked unconscious by Bolan, but he did have enough presence of mind to realize he was on the Parellis' hit list as well as Bolan's.

The realization made him feel worse. He fought off the panic that threatened to take control.

A biting wind stung his face as he hurried toward the entrance of Jimmy Kidd's.

A flashing neon sign above the door announced the name of the place, but that was the only decoration on the squat little brick building.

The bar was only one side of the building. Next door housed Sheba's.

He pushed open the heavy wooden door and was glad when it swung softly shut behind him. He shuddered briefly. And it was not only from the cold. Sure, it felt good to be out of the chill wind, but it felt even better to be where Bolan would not find him.

Jimmy supplied his barmen with shotguns, which were kept under the bar. All of the employees in Jimmy's and Sheba's were well acquainted with handling trouble and not just obnoxious drunk trouble, either. The bartenders also carried handguns tucked under their aprons. Many high-ranking mobsters frequented Jimmy Kidd's. They had to feel secure here. They wouldn't have it any other way.

The pub was low-ceilinged and paneled with dark wood, creating an atmosphere that was supposed to be cozy but that actually bordered on the claustrophobic.

The closed-in feeling was just what Owens wanted, he realized. He seemed safer, somehow, than being outside in the night, running for his life from Mack Bolan.

He settled into a vacant booth and lifted a finger to one of the bartenders; they knew him here, and he'd soon have his usual drink, Scotch straight up.

The place was busy, the after-movie crowd filling it almost to capacity.

That was good, too, thought Owens.

Bolan would not come in here and start slinging bullets around, not with the chance of hitting a lot of innocent people. Not everybody who came in here was Mafia, after all.

A waitress in a short skirt and low-cut blouse sashayed over to the booth with a drink on a tray. As she set it down, Owens drummed nervously on the table with his fingertips.

"How's about walking over a phone, babe?"

"I'm sorry, Mr. Owens, this booth doesn't have a jack and all the other booths are full. You can use the phone behind the bar, though."

He picked up his drink, swallowed half of it, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

"No, never mind," he said shakily. "I'll use the pay phone in a minute."

The girl gestured at the glass in his hand.

"Are you going to want a refill?"

He stared for a second at the amber liquid in the glass, then tossed it off.

"Damn straight," he breathed.

The liquor's fire warmed his insides and he suddenly felt a little stronger.

He didn't much like the idea of going into the corridor where the rest rooms were to use the pay phone there, but he didn't have much choice. He could hardly use the bar phone to call any of his friends, asking them to put him up under cover until this thing blew over. That would get ears listening and he didn't want that at all. He was paranoid, sure.

Owens could practically taste his own paranoia. He reminded himself that he had damn good reason to be afraid, on the run as he was from the meanest damn widow-maker to ever hit Chicago.

The waitress came over with his second drink and he disposed of it with one gulp.

Then, gathering what he recognized as alcohol-induced courage, he left the booth and made his way through the crowded, noisy bar to the corridor that opened up behind a curtain of beads on the left-hand wall of the bar.

This was actually the connecting corridor between Jimmy Kidd's and Sheba's. The rest rooms there served both establishments. Three pay phones adorned the wall.

He went to the first phone, dug in his pocket for change and fed coins into the slot.

The dial tone buzzing in his ear was a comforting sound.

He had just lifted his right hand to punch the digits of the number he wanted when strong, hard fingers clamped down upon his right shoulder.

Rush Street runs north of the Loop between Michigan Avenue and State Street and it is about as varied a thoroughfare as anyone could want: numerous bars and clubs, from the top-notch to the sleazy. A multitude of restaurants offered a diversity of ethnic foods. The term "melting pot" could have been coined for Rush Street.

Bolan drove the Datsun down Rush.

Traffic was heavy as he looked for Jimmy Kidd's and Sheba's.

The soldier had little reason to think fondly of Chicago, considering that this and his previous visits to this City of Big Shoulders, as Robert Frost had termed it, invariably tied in solely with his War Everlasting.

Still, there was about this city a vibrancy, a vitality, an immediacy that he found invigorating and quintessentially American, for Bolan recognized that the history of this one-of-a-kind metropolis squatting on the southern shore of Lake Michigan was a microcosm of the whole of American history and experience, mirroring a nation's greatness as well as its dark side; its dreams and its nightmares.

He knew something of the Windy City's past: how French explorers and trappers like Marquette and Jolliet had braved the hostile, uncharted interior of an expansive new continent, mapping the area as early as 1673; how Fort Dearborn was established in 1803.

Prosperity had first come to Chicago in the wake of harbor improvements, lake traffic and the settling of the prairies.

From the ashes of the fire of 1871 had risen a city of stone and steel that had not yet stopped growing, burgeoning into the free-wheeling big town of today, boasting a population of well over three million, a vital Great Lakes port and a busy rail, air and highway hub.

Rapidly growing industries had brought thousands of immigrants to Chi around the turn of the century, imbuing the metropolis with its rich ethnic diversity that continued to thrive.

The opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway in 1959 made Chicago a true city of the world, a major port for overseas shipping.

And if this wild and woolly, sooty, noisy,
friendly
town had gained itself a sometimes unsavory reputation, thanks to the likes of Capone, Accardo and Parelli, Chicago could claim equal fame for its symphony orchestra, its art institute, its civic opera and its natural history museum, barometers all of those heights of achievement in the arts and sciences of which the human spirit is capable.

The full array of the good, the bad and the ugly that Chicago had to offer were out in force along Rush Street this night.

The biting cold night wind snapped through the high, narrow canyons of this north-side district of clubs and restaurants. Shops attracted browsers, tourists, off-duty servicemen and down-and-out street people in droves around the clock, around the calendar, and this November weeknight was no exception.

Automobiles and human rabble made the night alive and slowed the Datsun's progress.

Bolan recognized the value of losing himself in the crush of people who clogged this multiblock stretch that is the principal Rush Street scene. He used the crawling pace to look for the establishments where he hoped to find Owens. As he cruised along in the traffic's flow, he thought of everything that had transpired during the short, roller-coaster ride since he had blown into Chicago earlier that night.

There had been intangibles about this mission from the beginning, but Bolan had vowed to take on the odds and deliver a strike against the Parelli empire in spite of those intangibles.

Parelli was worth Bolan's attention, damn right. The mobster had to be located and terminated.

Intangibles, yeah.

Bolan was convinced that there was more to this Chicago strike than he had first suspected. The warrior could sense a foul, evil undercurrent pulsing just beneath the surface, but time was running out too fast, and time was something Bolan had not had much of to begin with.

Bolan had never expected to survive his first assault on the Mafia those years ago when he had come home from Nam to avenge his family.

Vengeance, then, had quickly given way to duty, determination, when he fully understood the bigger picture. The Mafia was evil, sure, but it was only part of the problem.

And yet Bolan had lived his life since with the full expectation that every day could well be his last.

Thus far fate, luck, whatever, had seen him through mile after bloody mile, but Bolan understood that it could not last forever.

One day his luck would change and there'd be a bullet with his name on it. No matter.

Chicago was due for some cleansing fire.

He'd play Fate's game. He, too, had some aces up his sleeve.

He would not go to his death knowing that the truth had eluded him in Chicago.

Cold fury gripped his insides each time he thought of the sickness he had seen on Parelli's TV screen. He had to nail Parelli more than ever now, and he had to clear up this tangle before one more child came to harm.

There had to be something big, that was the only way it played, what with Parelli being so impossible to find. The Chicago boss had gone to ground and taken his terrible secrets and plans with him, but Bolan would find him, hell yeah, and Bolan would bust the thing apart so they'd never put it together again, no matter what it was.

And the best lead he had now was a creep he'd let slip through his fingers twice.

He would find Randy Owens.

He would learn the truth about Parelli and Griff and Senator Dutton and, he hoped, about a woman named Lana Garner.

If
hesurvived.

Chicago seemed wired for the Executioner; there had been too many close calls already from the Mob and the cops, but Bolan would do it, yes.

He spotted his target.

Both the bar and the massage parlor had distinctive signs bearing their names and both had a steady flow of customers, Bolan saw as he cruised by.

The closest parking spot he could find on the busy street was two blocks away. He did not like being that far from his wheels, but there was little he could do about it.

He locked the car and strode back down the bustling sidewalk toward Jimmy Kidd's.

Owens almost fainted on the spot.

Heart pounding, he flung himself around, half expecting to find himself staring down the barrel of that goddamn cannon the Executioner carried.

Instead, he found himself looking up into a strong but attractive female face framed by a wild mane of fiery red hair.

"My God, Sheba!" Owens exploded. "You just about scared the shit out of me!"

The towering redheaded beauty cracked a coarse chuckle and jerked a thumb at the door of the men's room, a few steps away.

"Well, we're in the right place for that, aren't we, hon?"

She was taller than Owens by a couple of inches. The leotard she wore revealed the impressive musculature of her body, reminding Owens of the fact that she was a bodybuilder who spent every minute she could spare away from the running of the massage parlor, pumping iron, developing muscles that came in handy for dealing with customers who got a little too carried away in the parlor. The stamina she gained from her workouts made her a tireless sexual performer. Owens had used her in several movies.

"What's the matter with you anyway?" she asked, studying Owens more closely, noticing his somewhat disheveled appearance. "I've never seen you this scared."

"I've never had Mack Bolan after me, either," Owens snapped.

"Bolan?" The name burst out of her. "What's the Executioner want with you? No offense, Randy, it's just that... you don't seem the type he usually goes after."

"Don't I wish," Owens muttered, making a sour face. "Look, Sheba, can you and Jimmy hide me out for a little while? I'll get in touch with..."

He broke off abruptly, unsure of how much to tell Sheba. It suddenly occurred to Owens that perhaps he could not trust the woman.

"I'll work it out," he finished limply.

She nodded.

"Sure, you can hang out around here, Randy boy. Go on in the club and tell Phoebe I said to take you upstairs to my office. Use the phone there if you need it. I'll go and get Jimmy."

"Thanks, Sheba. I really appreciate this."

She gave him a friendly slap on the back, the heavy thump only staggering him a little bit.

"Don't mention it. What are friends for? I'll see you in a few minutes."

She moved on down the corridor toward the bar, not the least bit self-conscious in the body-hugging leotard.

Owens went through a curtain of beads at the far end of the hall, similar to the doorway that led into Jimmy Kidd's.

Sheba's place was strictly functional on the first floor; massage rooms opened off the hall where the whores plied their trade.

The lighting was dim, the atmosphere smoky, stifling.

The walls pulsated like an eerie heartbeat from the jukebox and voices from Jimmy Kidd's on the other side of the partition, but in here was a closeness that Owens found to be spooky and uncomfortable.

The rooms on the second floor were fancier, better furnished, Owens knew. The clients with more money to spend were steered up to the second floor. The variety of services available up there was wider, too.